Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND BANKING GROUP BILL

Read a Second time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BARCLAYS BANK TRUST COMPANY BILL

Read a Second time and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BARRY CORPORATION BILL

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL

BLACKBURN CORPORATION BILL

BOLTON CORPORATION BILL

BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time Tomorrow.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

BRITISH WATERWAYS BILL

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL

CUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

CUMBERLAND RIVER AUTHORITY BILL

To be read a Second time Tomorrow.

ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

FLINTSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

GOSPORT CORPORATION BILL

Read a Second time and committed.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

HAVERING CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

HUNTINGDON AND PETERBOROUGH COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

KENT COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

LEICESTER COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

LONDON TRANSPORT BILL

MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

MONMOUTHSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

NEWPORT CORPORATION BILL

Read a Second time and committed.

NORTHUMBERLAND COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

PLYMOUTH AND SOUTH WEST DEVON WATER BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

PORT OF TYNE BILL

SOMERSET COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

SOUTHAMPTON CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

STOKE-ON-TRENT CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

SWANSEA CORPORATION BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

TOR BAY HARBOUR BILL

TORBAY CORPORATION BILL

WALLASEY CORPORATION BILL

WEST HERTFORDSHIRE MAIN DRAINAGE BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

WEST RIDING COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

Read a Second time and committed.

WHITEHAVEN HARBOUR BILL

WILLIAMS & GLYN'S BANK BILL

To be read a Second time tomorrow.

YORKSHIRE DERWENT WATER BILL

To be read a Second time upon Tuesday next.

CIVIL CONTINGENCIES FUND 1968–69

Accounts ordered,
of the Civil Contingencies Fund 1968–69, showing (1) the Receipts and Payments in connection with the Fund in the year ended the 31st day of March, 1969, and (2) the Distribution of the Capital of the Fund at the commencement and close of the year, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General thereon.—[Mr. Trireme.]

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Toll Bridges

Mr. Marten: asked the Minister of Transport if he will now make a statement on the future of toll bridges.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): It remains my right hon. Friend's policy that major new estuarial crossings which will provide exceptional savings in cost and time to the users should be tolled. On the other hand, he has no proposals to change the present powers.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: On a point of order. I am not sure whether something is wrong with the amplification or with my ears, but we do not seem to be hearing very well on this side of the House.

Mr. Speaker: I cannot decide that dilemma. We must continue.

Mr. Brown: I take note of the comment.
It remains my right hon. Friend's policy that major new estuarial crossings which

will provide exceptional savings in cost and time to the users should be tolled. On the other hand, he has no proposals to change the present powers of highway authorities to acquire private toll rights under Section 233 of the Highways Act, 1959, but he should continue to expect each case to be considered on its merits in terms of cost and benefit to traffic.

Mr. Marten: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there are over 20 ancient toll bridges, the dues on which started some centuries ago? Is it not time that the Government looked at this again.

Mr. Brown: We are aware of the number of toll bridges and of the anomalies, but this is a matter for the highway authorities concerned.

Mr. Ashton: Would the Minister consider making a compulsory purchase order for the toll bridge at Dunham-on-Trent on the A57 in Nottinghamshire? Is he aware that he would have the support of people throughout the country if he were to take such a course because this piece of the main A57 road should belong to the people and not to a private individual?

Mr. Brown: Without going into the specific details of any individual project, I simply reiterate that once we get a proposition from a highway authority we look at it on its merits.

Channel Tunnel

Mr. Sheldon: asked the Minister of Transport if he will now make a statement on the financing of the Channel Tunnel.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Albert Murray): Discussions with the prospective financing groups are proceeding, but details must remain confidential at the present stage.

Mr. Sheldon: Is it not becoming clear that the groups are not willing to spend some of their own money and it is time that we had a fresh look at the 1963 White Paper which, being seven years old, is hopelessly out of date? Cannot we have a crossing that is in keeping with this century?

Mr. Murray: Negotiations are at present going on and when the Government are ready to make a statement on the whole matter they will do so.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: Does the Joint Parliamentary Secretary appreciate that negotiations have been going on for a very long time and that the effect of this delay that large areas of South-East England are suffering from planning blight? Is he aware of the great deal of uncertainty that surrounds this whole project? Will he give direct answers in future and not just evade the issue?

Mr. Murray: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman looks up the word "negotiations" in the dictionary. He will find that it means talks. These talks are going on. We are not prepared, while negotiations are continuing, to make a statement.

Mr. Hector Hughes: Does my hon. Friend realise that the financing of this project will damage the trade, industry and commerce of Britain in general and of Scotland in particular because it will encourage workers away from this island?

Mr. Murray: No, Sir.

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make a statement on the proposed tolls to be charged for goods transported by rail through the Channel Tunnel.

Mr. Murray: It is too early to say what the structure and level of tunnel tariffs might be. While the main responsibility for deciding these would rest with the future Anglo-French Tunnel Operating Authority, they would of course work within a framework of Governmental control.

Mr. Costain: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that he does not know what the Channel Tunnel tolls are likely to be? The whole purpose, if any, of building the tunnel is that transport should be cheaper. If that is the most important factor, why does not the hon. Gentleman make an announcement on the subject?

Mr. Murray: Since the Channel Tunnel would not be opened for several years at least, it would be rather foolish to announce the tolls at this stage.

Mr. Ronald Atkins: Would it not be more accurate to describe these as transportation charges rather than as tolls, since presumably the traffic will be carried by rail? Is not this Question another attempt by the anti-Channel Tunnel lobby to denigrate a project for reasons which vary from vested interest to ignorance?

Mr. Murray: I do not think that I would like to comment on that point.

Railway Commuters (Radio Programmes)

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Transport if he will give a general direction to British Railways to relay early morning and tea-time radio programmes, including news bulletins and other items of interest, to commuter passengers travelling in and out of London and other major cities.

Mr. Murray: No, Sir.

Mr. Roberts: Is my hon. Friend aware that if public transport is to flourish it must get away from the cattle truck era as quickly as possible? Is he further aware that broadcasts of this type would not need to be universal in that one could have broadcast and non-broadcast carriages?

Mr. Murray: This is a matter for the day-to-day management of British Rail. I should have thought, however, that the main concern of commuters was getting to and from their destinations as quickly as possible in the maximum comfort without necessarily having to listen to broadcasts which, after all, might be telling them about faster forms of travel.

Mr. Blackburn: I thank my hon. Friend for his comprehensive answer to the original Question. Is he aware, as I am sure he is, that some people like at times to be quiet?

Cheriton Bypass

Mr. Costain: asked the Minister of Transport what progress has been made in planning the Cheriton bypass; and when work will commence.

Mr. Bob Brown: The scheme is at a very early stage of preparation. Detailed proposals and the timing of construction will depend on a decision whether to build a Channel Tunnel.

Mr. Costain: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that this is yet another example of essential development being held up because of a Minister not being able to make up his mind regarding the channel tunnel? Is he aware that it is seven years since I first wrote to the Ministry on this issue?

Mr. Brown: I disagree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, a decision to construct a tunnel could well bring forward the date when this work would start.

Drink and Driving Legislation

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will now introduce amending legislation to clarify the law in regard to breathalysers.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Minister of Transport if, following the increase in the number of road deaths during the Christmas holiday period, he will now introduce legislation to provide for random breath tests.

The Minister of Transport (Mr. Fred Mulley): The drink and driving legislation is continuing to be highly effective. In the light of court decisions last month, I have decided not to propose any change in the law at present. Together with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary, I shall continue, however, to keep a close watch on the working of the Act.

Sir G. Nabarro: Whereas the overwhelming majority of motorists support the right hon. Gentleman in his drive to make drinking and driving legislation even more effective, may I ask if he is aware that there are certain areas of this legislation which arouse grave dubiety in the minds of motorists, the police and the courts, as is evident from the conflicting judgments which have been given in recent months? Will he reconsider this matter with a view to introducing amending legislation this Session?

Mr. Mulley: I suggest that the hon. Gentleman's point about confusion might have been relevant a couple of months ago, when a number of cases were pending in the courts. However, the clear decisions in the House of Lords and the Court of Appeal in December have removed that dubiety and, as far as I am aware, the motorist knows what he can

and cannot do and the police are equally in no doubt on this issue.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: May we now take it that the Minister has abandoned proposals to introduce random testing?

Mr. Mulley: The hon. Gentleman must not put it that way because I never adopted any such proposals. I will not have words put into my mouth. I have made it very clear, both inside and outside the House, that I regard the Act as being a real life saver. I will not allow its gains to be eroded. If the Act is not working we will examine it again, but I am satisfied, in the light of recent judicial decisions, that it is working, and I am content to leave it like that at present.

Road Accidents (Warning Triangles)

Sir G. Nabarro: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will use his existing powers to require, by statutory order, the use of a red triangle, phosphorescently illuminated for employment after dark, to be placed on the road compulsorily, by vehicles broken down or otherwise stopped, to warn oncoming traffic and reduce dangers of collisons, notably in inclement, misty and foggy weather.

Mr. Murray: Motorists are permitted to place an advance warning triangle on the road if they break down or have an accident. My right hon. Friend has no powers under existing legislation to require motorists to use these signs.

Sir G. Nabarro: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that practically every West European country requires these red triangles to be placed on the road—that is, in an obligatory fashion by statute? Will he reconsider this matter with a view to introducing legislation? Alternatively, will he support private legislation for what is a very necessary reform?

Mr. Murray: I am sure that the whole House is concerned about road accidents. We are at present studying, in connection with the suggestion made by the hon. Gentleman, the relative merits of the hazard warning devices which are at present permitted. We will be making a statement and, if necessary, we will seek powers.

Mr. Arthur Lewis: Why, pending those decisions being taken, cannot my hon.


Friend recommend motorists to obtain these implements and use them when necessary? They are relatively cheap and serve a useful purpose. Will he make a positive statement while the investigation is proceeding?

Mr. Murray: I said that we are examining warning devices. There is absolutely nothing to stop a motorist from obtaining these devices if he desires so to do.

Mersey Bridge

Mr. Tilney: asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the beneficial effect that a bridge from Garston to East lam across the Mersey would have on Merseyside in general and the economic viability of Speke Airport in particular, he will give greater priority to such a construction.

Mr. Bob Brown: The report of the Merseyside Land Use Transportation Study proposed a bridge across the Mersey but not as a priority and not between Garston and Eastham. It will be for the local authorities on Merseyside to initiate proposals for such a bridge.

Mr. Tilney: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that the bridge as now suggested, from Aigburth to Bebington, has blighted a large area of property on both sides of the Mersey? As traffic now flows more freely around the periphery of towns, is he aware that a bridge further out would bring in the rich catchment area of the Wirral more cheaply to Speke Airport?

Mr. Brown: I am certain that the local authorities of Merseyside are appraised of the situation in relation to blight. It is clearly for them to initiate proposals regarding a bridge. Such a bridge would, in any event, probably be, as I indicated last July to the hon. Gentleman, between Bromborough and Aigburth.

Dr. Winstanley: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that many thousands of people who live immediately adjacent to Manchester Airport, Ringway, are anxious for the airport at Speke, Liverpool, to be expanded?

Motorways (Road Safety)

Sir R. Russell: asked the Minister of Transport what progress is being made

in the reduction of accidents in fog on motorways.

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Transport what proposals he has for improving road safety on motorways during bad weather.

Mr. Henig: asked the Minister of Transport what further measures he is planning to increase safety on motorways.

Mr. Mulley: The improved signal system now being introduced over the motorway network should help a great deal. But the real answer must be careful and responsible driving and this includes making proper allowance for weather conditions.

Sir R. Russell: Is the Minister aware that it is not only a question of motorway madness but sometimes a feeling of being lost in the middle of a desert and the urge to cling to the rear light of the car in front? Will he look at the question of having more reflectors not only on the outside of each carriageway but between the lanes as well?

Mr. Mulley: I am grateful to the hon. Member for that suggestion. We are considering a great number of suggestions which we have received as a result of the unfortunate accidents in December. I endorse what the hon. Member has said. There are some people who drive like lunatics on motorways, but the average motorist is very responsible and considerable responsibility has been shown in recent weeks when weather conditions have been bad.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Does the Minister agree that one of the most relevant steps which could be taken would be to make warning signs relevant to the occasion as only too often new warning signs are off when they should be on and on when they should be off?

Mr. Mulley: The new system will permit indicating a wide range of recommended speeds, which lanes are closed and that kind of thing. I agree that on motorways where there is only a 30 m.p.h. warning sign that is not possible, but we are advocating the remote control computer system as far as we can. There is always bound to be an element of human frailty in the fact that one depends on people exercising


judgment and they cannot be infallible, but the new system with computers will be used as reasonably as can be devised.

Mr. Tinn: Does my right hon. Friend realise that those motorists who cannot recognise fog for what it is and do not drive reasonably are unlikely to understand an abstract system of signs which is now being introduced and which is not self-explanatory? As some motorists understand signals and some do not, might there not be an additional hazard created by the new system?

Mr. Mulley: If my hon. Friend looks at the system introduced on the M4 between London and the airport he will see that it indicates very clearly recommended speeds per hour and very clearly if lanes have been closed and if there is a diversion. We are doing as much as we can to make these matters clear. I should not have thought that this was a serious problem.

Mr. Carlisle: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that one of the worst parts of motorways is on the M6 Thelwall Viaduct in my constituency? A decision was taken as long ago as September. 1968, that new computer-controlled warning lights were needed, yet no contract was awarded until September, 1969. When will lights be in existence on that part of the road?

Mr. Mulley: I cannot without notice give a precise date, but I will write to the hon. Member and tell him. We appreciate the urgency of the system on the M6, but these are very complicated and expensive systems and it is not possible to create them overnight.

Mr. Mapp: Does my right hon. Friend realise that enforcement is the method rather than education in these days? Will he be good enough to consider whether a tine-camera fronted fore and aft on a moving police vehicle may be more effective in identifying offenders, and then the courts could deal with such things rather than having too much education which is being lost?

Mr. Mulley: I would not agree that there is no value in education. I have had a very great response to my letters to each editor and to television and radio producers. Over Christmas we had more publicity than ever before. I do

not think education is wasted. Enforcement is a matter for the police authorities and my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and not strictly for me. In the context of fog everyone will realise that the last thing we want is a line of cars chasing offenders up motorways in conditions which are already hazardous.

Motorway Systems

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Minister of Transport if he will set up a feasibility study to consider in detail the social and economic advantages and disadvantages of underground as compared with surface motorway systems in London and other urban areas; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Mulley: No, Sir, but the Urban Motorways Committee is examining how best to fit major new roads into urban areas and will consider the possibilities for construction below ground.

Mr. Roberts: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that the delay, or suggested delay, in some of the London motor box systems gives him an opportunity to look in detail at this matter again? Has he looked at some of the very impressive private cost-benefit analyses of underground as compared with surface roadways, many of which suggest that not only are there overwhelming amenity advantages for underground motorways but in many cases actual cost advantages?

Mr. Mulley: I think the proper way to look at this is to look at each scheme or proposal on its merits and see whether on a cost-benefit or amenity basis it would be more appropriate to go underground than on the surface. My hon. Friend must not expect me to comment on present proposals which are subject to inquiry about the London Ringway motorway.

Road Junctions (Temporary Flyovers)

Sir R. Russell: asked the Minister of Transport what further proposals he has for erecting temporary flyovers at congested road junctions following the completion of some flyovers in 1969; and if he will give completion dates.

Mr. Bob Brown: Two temporary flyovers are under construction and two more have been authorised. Those under


construction are at Gallows Corner in Havering and at Lodge Avenue in Barking and should be completed in April this year and late 1973 respectively. Flyovers at Newbank Interchange in Halifax and Ballards Road-Kent Avenue in Dagenham are programmed and should be completed in mid-1972 and 1974.

Sir R. Russell: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that answer. Would he agree that there are many junctions on roads such as the North and South Circular roads in London which are suitable for this treatment where no permanent solution has yet been found?

Mr. Brown: It is fairly evident that the need for temporary flyovers will always occur in heavily congested urban areas. Without specifying any particular road, temporary flyovers have disadvantages as well as advantages, particularly when it comes to doing the permanent job.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will the hon. Gentleman say why most flyovers in this country are built to last 200 years? It would be quite impossible to modify them. Will he note that some form of prefabricated flyover, such as the turnpike in New Jersey, could suit many cases, speed up the rate of road reconstruction and help solve traffic problems?

Mr. Brown: I think it fair to say that flyovers of the type the hon. Member has in mind are not basically temporary. A permanent flyover, whether built to last for 100 or 200 years, clearly has to be a very strong structure. I doubt very much whether we could ever have a permanent flyover built in a prefabricated style.

Christmas and New Year (Road Casualties)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Minister of Transport what assessment he has made of road casualty figures over Christmas and the New Year.

Mr. Mulley: Final figures will not be available until about the end of next month. I shall look at these closely, with particular regard to the number of accidents in which alcohol may have been a factor, but there are dangers in attaching too much importance to figures for such a limited period.

Mr. Dalyell: Is it not generally true that as many accidents were attributable to basically unroadworthy vehicles as to drink over this period and that unroadworthiness was often connected with salt and consequent corrosion on the road?

Mr. Mulley: I cannot say, until the final figures and details are available, what was the main factor in these accidents. I should have thought it going rather far to suggest that salting of the roads was responsible for unroadworthy conditions. It is true that it has a detrimental effect on vehicles, but it is the only effective way of dealing with frost and ice conditions and it is used only when weather conditions make it necessary.

Mr. Heseltine: In view of this Question and a very large number of Questions on road safety, will the Minister consider the advantages of establishing a central road safety board to co-ordinate the overlapping responsibilities of his Ministry, local authorities and RoSPA?

Mr. Mulley: I am quite prepared to examine any suggestion which might lead to greater road safety, but I do not see that overlapping at the moment causes any problems. There are very close consultations on all these matters; indeed sometimes I am criticised because there is a lapse of time due to the consultative process. I would not agree to setting up further bodies unless I were satisfied there was a case for that.

Mallon Bypass

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Transport whether a decision on the date for the start of work on the Malton bypass on the A64 has yet been taken.

Mr. Bob Brown: The scheme is still being considered for a place in the firm programme. We shall announce our decision as soon as possible.

Mr. Turton: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that for over 30 years I have been pressing for this improvement and that successive Ministers have agreed that it is important? As after the coming General Election I shall not be in the House, and the hon. Gentleman will not be on that Front Bench, will he, by authorising this scheme, consider assuring himself of a permanent memorial in the town of Malton?

Mr. Brown: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on one issue: we know that he will not be with us after the next General Election. The House will sustain a great loss when the right hon. Gentleman departs. I cannot agree with him, however, that I will not necessarily be on this Front Bench after the election.
We must be satisfied that it is a proper time for this scheme to find a place in the road programme before giving a decision. We will have certain aspects under consideration, not least of all the question of the permanent memorial to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

A1, North Yorkshire (Road Accidents)

Mr. Turton: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will now publish the results of the survey on road accidents on the Al between Boroughbridge and Scotch Corner.

Mr. Bob Brown: No, Sir. The survey to which the right hon. Member refers is a report prepared for further consideration within the Department of the problems involved. It is not the practice for such internal papers to be published.

Mr. Turton: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that there is great public concern about the number of accidents on this stretch of trunk road? Is it not unsatisfactory that the Minister should be receiving secret reports from his experts on these accidents that are being withheld from the local road safety committee?

Mr. Brown: I cannot accept that any secret reports have been received by my right hon. Friend. There has been a report from the Road Safety Unit which has included several recommendations for improving the position on this road. The right hon. Gentleman knows well enough that he has had a communication from my right hon. Friend indicating the measures set out in the report and the steps we intend to take to implement the recommendations. We could not have been fairer than that.

M6 (Midland Link Section)

Mr. Dance: asked the Minister of Transport what problems have prevented the Midland link section of the M6 from being completed in 1971 as previously planned.

Mr. Murray: None, Sir. Completion of all contracts is expected towards the end of 1971.

Mr. Dance: Does the Joint Parliamentary Secretary realise that in response to numerous questions we have been told categorically that this road will be finished by the end of 1971? How, then, does he reconcile the statement made by the other Parliamentary Secretary on 1st December that it would be completed in 1972?

Mr. Murray: As we have said on many occasions, Labour government works. Not only do we keep our promises; we improve on them.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: Are we to take it that the Parliamentary Secretary assumes that he will be freed of his present responsibility to work on building the road itself?

Mr. Dance: On a point of order. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the hon. Gentleman's reply, I give notice that I will try to raise this matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment.

Hull (Road Communications)

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Transport if he will make a further statement on the progress of the construction programme of motorways from the M1-A1 to Hull together with the approaches to the Humber Bridge.

Mr. Bob Brown: It is hoped that the contract for construction of the Hatfield-Thorne section of the M18 will be let this summer, and the Lofthouse-Ferrybridge section of the M62 in 1971. Preparatory work on the route of the M62 from Ferrybridge to Balkholme, and the remaining sections of the M18 between the A1 and the M62, have not yet reached the stage at which starting dates can be given.
The M62 and an improved A63 trunk road will provide satisfactory northern approaches to the Humber Bridge. A project feasibility study of the trunk and principal road network of South Humberside is in progress.

Mr. Wall: Has not the programme of the M62 and M18 already slipped by one year? In what year does the hon. Gentleman expect the extension of these two


motorways to reach the City of Kingston upon Hull?

Mr. Brown: Slippage is another question, on which I cannot comment. Taking the hon. Gentleman's point to indicate that there should be motorway all the way to Hull, present forecasts of traffic on the A63 east of Balkholme do not justify the construction of a motorway.

Mr. George Jeger: Is my hon. Friend aware that recent investigations of the canal bridges along this peculiar stretch of country, which is flat and studded with canals and which also has a number of rarther dangerous railway level crossings, make it imperative that there should be a speed-up in the plans for this motorway all the way from the M1 and A1 through to Goole and on to Hull?

Mr. Brown: Everyone thinks that the building of roads in his area should be speeded up. We are doing well in this area. There is already dual carriageway for 5½ miles westwards of Hull. Elloughton bypass is under construction. This will extend the dualling for 2½ miles. The South Cave-Balkholme improvement, which is now in preparation, entails duelling to the present terminal of M62. I do not think that we can do any better.

Thames Bridges (Approaches)

Mr. Wall: asked the Minister of Transport what plans he has for constructing underpasses to the approaches of the Thames bridges in the Central London area.

Mr. Bob Brown: None, Sir. Such routes are the responsibility of the Greater London Council or the Corporation of the City of London as highway authority.

Mr. Wall: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary bear in mind the lessons that have been learned from other capital cities such as Paris and Brussels as to the advantage of these underpasses and do all he can to ensure that they be constructed in London?

Mr. Brown: We have just given the Greater London Council the most comprehensive powers in road traffic that any authority in the world has. It would not be proper for either my right hon. Friend Dr me to attempt to dictate plans to the Council.

Mr. Lipton: Is my hon. Friend aware that as a result of giving the Tory-controlled G.L.C. greater powers than any municipal authority has ever had in transport London's transport is worse now than it has ever been? London's bus services have been cut to ribbons, to the vast inconvenience of London's travelling public?

Mr. Brown: These are points that my hon. Friend should take up with the responsible authority, namely, the G.L.C.

Motorway Construction

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Transport what is the average time taken for the construction of a motorway, from the start of the feasibility study on the project until the motorway is opened for traffic.

Mr. Murray: The period varies widely according to the complexity of individual schemes, but under current procedures major motorway schemes are expected to take, on the average, about seven years from the start of feasibility study or initial preparation to completion.

Mr. Manuel: Although conceding the right of any individual or organisation to object to or appeal against a decision, is not a period of 6–7 years far too long? We can never cure the great and growing problems that face the country unless we considerably shorten the present procedures.

Mr. Murray: It would be difficult to shorten the procedures, because major motorway schemes are very complex. Any Government must ensure that all the procedures are followed so that individuals' rights are safeguarded.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: If it takes seven years to go through the procedures, will it not be impossible, in view of the small number of roads now being planned, to continue the road building programme after 1972?

Mr. Murray: No, Sir.

Heavy Road Vehicles (Night Operation)

Mr. Manuel: asked the Minister of Transport if he will have discussions with the road haulage interests affected with a view to getting agreement that


heavy road vehicles should operate whenever possible during the night hours.

Mr. Murray: Heavy lorries already move by night where this suits the needs of industry and is economic. I do not think the road haulage industry needs any additional encouragement from my right hon. Friend in this respect.

Mr. Manuel: Is it not wrong to close the door in the way my hon. Friend has by that reply? Is he aware that there is almost a complete absence of private vehicles and public service passenger vehicles during the night hours? The movement of goods to the ports and industry could be achieved much more quickly and cheaply and a great number of accidents avoided if it was done at night.

Mr. Murray: I am not sure whether the criterion of cheapness would apply. But on accidents, in 1968 37 per cent. of serious casualties and 43 per cent. of fatalities occurred after dark, even though little more than 25 per cent. of all travel took place at night.

Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman reject the absurd attitude of some hon. Members opposite that road haulage is an unnecessary irritation which is really dispensable? Will he stop heaping further burdens and restrictions on road haulage and start giving some encouragement to this vital sector of our transport?

Mr. Murray: I am certain that the Government and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) give all the encouragement to transport that is possible. The trouble with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) is that he continually thinks that this House is a Celtic-Rangers game.

Motor Vehicle Insurance (Passenger Liability)

Mr. Iremonger: asked the Minister of Transport when he now intends to introduce legislation to make insurance for causing death or injury to passengers compulsory.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: asked the Minister of Transport when he now plans to make it compulsory for all motor

insurance companies to make passenger liability an inherent part of their motor insurance policies.

Mrs. Knight: asked the Minister of Transport when he now proposes to introduce legislation to make it compulsory to insure passenger liability in connection with all motor vehicles.

Mr. Mulley: I am not yet in a position to say when a suitable opportunity will arise.

Mr. Iremonger: Will the right hon. Gentleman at any rate say that he has a positive intention to seek an opportunity and that he knows what he is going to do when the opportunity does arise?

Mr. Mulley: My predecessor some time ago stated our desire to see this legislation enacted, and I reaffirmed that more recently. But, of course, the Queen's Speech contained a very full programme of parliamentary business and against that background I cannot give a date for this legislation.

Motorways (Heavy Vehicles)

Mr. Dudley Smith: asked the Minister of Transport if he will institute an inquiry into the speeds achieved by lorries and other heavy vehicles on motorways and other main roads, in view of the increasing number of accidents involving such vehicles.

Mr. Mulley: The accident involvement rate for heavy vehicles on motorways and main roads combined shows a downward tendency in recent years.
I see no grounds for a special inquiry into the speeds achieved but speed checks will continue to be made from time to time.

Mr. Dudley Smith: Nevertheless, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, increasingly, one can see really heavy vehicles charging along at 60 miles an hour or more whereas a few years ago they were restricted to 20 miles an hour? Is he further aware that many motorists regard this as a real hazard and look to the Ministry to take further action?

Mr. Mulley: The question of enforcement is, I repeat, a matter for the police. In the last five years the number of prosecutions for the offence of speeding in


heavy goods vehicles has nearly doubled. If I were to endorse the hon. Gentleman's view about a 20 m.p.h. limit for heavy goods vehicles now—the limit is 40 m.p.h. on all-purpose roads—I should be attacked by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) for being down on the road haulage industry. I hope that hon. Members opposite will see the difficulties.

Mr. J. T. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these criticisms are not only directed against the speed of these heavy vehicles but against their ever-increasing size as well? Is it not time that the Government or those responsible for determining policy put a limit on the constant extension of size of these great juggernauts, particularly those which are articulated and jackknife on innocent motorists like myself and others?

Mr. Mulley: I am sure that the House is pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) so well recovered from his unfortunate road accident, just before Christmas. I think, however, that he is perhaps not fully informed of the very strict limitations on size and weight, and I have not made any increases. There are other Questions on the Order Paper about proposals for increases in size and weight and I had better wait until we reach them before making further comment.

Sheffield—Manchester—Liverpool (Motorway Link)

Mr. J. H. Osborn: asked the Minister of Transport whether he will now make a further statement about a motorway link between Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool.

Mr. Hooley: asked the Minister of Transport when he expects to publish the findings of the study on trans-Pennine road traffic.

Mr. Mulley: I understand that the final report on the Sheffield—Manchester project feasibility study will be completed within the next few weeks. When I have examined the recommendation I will announce the preferred route and details of the scheme on which advanced preparation work will continue.
Beyond Manchester the route of the M62 Motorway has now been fixed as far as Tarbock, on the outskirts of Liverpool.

Mr. Osborn: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any idea when he will be able to make this statement? Is he aware that we have waited a long time and there have been a lot of delays?

Mr. Mulley: I cannot give a date when I can confirm the final judgment on a scheme that has not yet been submitted to me. I shall naturally want time to have it thoroughly examined. I can assure the hon. Member that this does not add any period of delay to the subsequent building of a road, if it is approved, because the preparatory scheme will in any event take a considerable time.

Mr. Hooley: In considering the findings of this study would my right hon. Friend pay special attention to the dangers which may accrue to the Peak National Park through the siting on the nature of construction of trans-Pennine roads?

Mr. Mulley: I shall as always try to pay the fullest attention to the amenity aspect. It is because of these difficulties that the study is taking rather longer than was envisaged and why we asked for a feasibility study to be conducted.

Mr. Fortescue: As Liverpool is still the largest export port in this country would not the Minister agree that this motorway should be given priority above others in the schemes of his Department?

Mr. Mulley: I do not think that I can allocate priorities on road schemes to hon. Members at Question Time. This would probably lead, in one afternoon, to the earmarking of road building funds for a considerable period ahead. We have to try to weigh up the economic and social factors and work out priorities on that basis.

Mr. Crawshaw: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the urgency of this problem for Liverpool lies in the fact that a new tunnel is nearing completion? Does he realise that there is a whole length of motorway leading to nowhere? Does he intend to get this motorway going within our lifetime? It does not appear that it will get on to the book.

Mr. Mulley: A considerable number of new roads have been built in the NorthWest—I opened a 13-mile stretch of motorway quite recently. At this time I could not hope to give a large list of such schemes, but I will see that my hon. Friend gets one.

THE ECONOMY (MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY)

Mr. Marten: asked the Prime Minister if he is satisfied with the coordination between the various Ministers who have responsibilities for the economy of the country, in view of the most recent trade figures.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Roy Jenkins): I have been asked to reply.
Yes, Sir.

Mr. Marten: How can the Chancellor be satisfied with a situation where unemployment is at the highest level practically since the end of the war, excluding the two bad winters? What is he going to do about it?

Mr. Jenkins: The Question the hon. Gentleman asked was related to the trade figures and the division of responsibility between economics Ministers. The level of unemployment is almost exactly 200,000 below what it was in January, 1963.

Mr. Barnett: Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent study carried out on the subject of poverty? Now that the economic situation is considerably improved—and we are all grateful to him for his work towards that end—will he consider the suggestion put forward in the document for the setting up of a Royal Commission to consider poverty? Would this not perhaps be the best way of dealing with what is still a serious problem?

Mr. Jenkins: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I will study the document and consider the matter, but I am not sure that my hon. Friend's supplementary question arose directly from the Question on the Order Paper.

Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Gentleman replied to this Question in the affirmative. Is he aware that the Prime Minister should not be satisfied with the co-ordination between the Board

of Trade and the Treasury, for example? It is the right rate of interest that is affecting unemployment figures and our general potential for doing trade. The Prime Minister should not be satisfied, whether the Chancellor is or not.

Mr. Jenkins: Both the Prime Minister and I are satisfied with the co-ordination. We are certainly satisfied with the trade figures. There are problems relating to interest rates but this is an international and not exclusively a British problem.

Mr. Roebuck: Is not my right hon. Friend playing this matter too softly? Is it not a fact that we have magnificent trade figures and that we are recovering from the mess which the party opposite put the country in? Is there not good reason for saying that we should be abundantly satisfied with the way Ministers are co-ordinating these matters?

Mr. Jenkins: Should I be in danger of playing it too softly, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Roebuck) would no doubt help me.

Mr. Maudling: Can the right hon. Gentleman really be satisfied with a situation in which there has been certainly an improvement in the balance of payments but no greater in scale than that achieved by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) and which has been accompanied by enormous and continuous overseas debt, a vast increase in taxation, record interest rates, very high unemployment and catastrophic housing figures?

Mr. Jenkins: There is certainly not an enormous and continuing overseas debt. There is a reducing overseas debt. In so far as it was wise of the right hon. Gentleman to refer back to the period of office of the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) and not to his own as Chancellor, I can tell him that 1969 will be the best year on current account since 1958 and probably the best year on the balance of payments, both on current and capital account, since records were kept.

Mr. Thorpe: Since the right hon. Gentleman is replying on behalf of the Prime Minister, can he say whether the Prime Minister is satisfied that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is sufficiently in


touch with views of the Minister of Agriculture about the economic plight of the agricultural industry?

Mr. Jenkins: Yes, Sir. I believe that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is so satisfied. I myself am so satisfied, having had the pleasure of receiving, with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, a deputation from the N.F.U. only last Friday.

Mr. Sheldon: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the point about the recent encouraging balance of payments figures is that the situation is under control for the first time in 15 years? That is what is important. This is the first time we have seen this large and continuing balance and have been able to predict it. Will he, in considering the distribution of some small part of the reward, for which so much credit is due to him, consider turning his attention to the prescription charges?

Mr. Jenkins: It is certainly true that the balance of payments result is the best for a considerable time and I notice that, as it has been achieved, right hon. and hon. Members opposite have become increasingly unanxious to talk about it but increasingly anxious to talk about every other possible subject. I note what my hon. Friend has said about the prescript ion charges.

PRIME MINISTER AND PRESIDENT NIXON (DISCUSSIONS)

Mr. Dalyell: asked the Prime Minister what discussions he had with President Nixon on diversifying the research programmes of United States companies based in the United Kingdom throughout their international divisions.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
I would ask my hon. Friend to await my right hon. Friend's return.

Mr. Dalyell: Whereas the practice of most American companies is of an enlightened order, is my right hon. Friend aware that some of us are unhappy about companies in Central Scotland that seem to be run by telex either from California or Texas? Is it not at least worth

talking to the Americans about the moral obligations of international companies to diversify their research and development?

Mr. Jenkins: In general it is desirable that international companies should spread their research and development as they spread their production. It is also possible to argue what is even more important—that adequate research and development should be done and the results made available to all subsidiary companies, wherever they are. An adequate balance must be kept between the two considerations.

Mr. Peyton: Does not the Chancellor agree that this would be a much more confortable subject for the Prime Minister to discuss with President Nixon than almost any other available to him and that otherwise the Prime Minister is really an embarrassment slung around the neck of the President, who has some regard for common sense on Rhodesia and other subjects?

Mr. Jenkins: That supplementary question is as wild as most questions asked by the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton).

FOREIGN TRADE MISSIONS

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: asked the Prime Minister on how many occasions he has performed the opening ceremony, in his official capacity, at the offices of foreign trade missions in London, and in respect of which foreign countries.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
My right hon. Friend has not performed any such opening ceremony, Sir.

Mr. Bruce-Gardyne: The Chancellor and the Prime Minister seem to have short memories. Did not the Prime Minister visit a Russian trade mission in December? Was this visit part of the softening-up process, like the Gerald Brooke exchange, designed to extract for the Prime Minister an invitation to an electioneering trip to Moscow?

Mr. Jenkins: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend attended a reception in connection with the opening on 17th December. But if the hon. Gentleman wants answers to


his Questions, he must learn to put them down accurately. My right hon. Friend performed no opening ceremony. I think it desirable that the Prime Minister should attend such gatherings in connection with the promotion of Anglo-Soviet relations.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Does the Chancellor really think that all the high-level junketting that went on on that occasion is appropriate so soon after events in Czechoslovakia?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not know whether that hon. Gentleman takes the view that one should not be anxious to encourage on a moderate scale, as I think is only likely to happen, developments in East-West trade. I think that this is a reasonable thing to encourage and I think that this was a reasonable occasion.

PRIME MINISTER'S STAFF (SALARIES)

Mr. Arthur Lewis: asked the Prime Minister whether he will arrange to have the salaries of all of his staff raised by 10 per cent. and to ensure that all staff have increases sufficient to bring their salaries at least 35 per cent. above those paid in November, 1967.

Mr. Roy Jenkins: I have been asked to reply.
No, Sir. The salaries of civil servants are reviewed periodically on the principle of fair comparison in order to bring them into line with outside rates of pay for similar work.

Mr. Lewis: In paying tribute to the overworked and underpaid staff of the Prime Minister's office, may I ask whether it is not the case that they work very hard—indeed, just as hard as the Chairman of the Horse Race Betting Levy Board? As the Government seem loath to give increases to nurses, teachers and their own civil servants, why give increases to people like the Chairman of the Board and not to ordinary people?

Mr. Jenkins: The staff at No. 10 Downing Street seem to have worked sufficiently hard to have anticipated the nature of my hon. Friend's supplementary question. I think that the difference between the Chairman of the Horse Race Betting Levy Board and the staff at No.

10 Downing Street is that he, during the period of the review, has gone from a four-day week to a five-day week, whereas the staff at No. 10 work at least five days a week.

Dame Irene Ward: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is time to hold an examination into the national Whitley Council arrangements? Is he aware that the Secretary of State for Education has said that he wants more pay for teachers and that the Secretary of State for Social Services, naturally, wants increased salaries for nurses, and I hope for physiotherapists, while at the same time instructions to the national representatives on the Whitley Council are militating against the management side of the Council being able to give increased salaries? Would he agree that the whole thing is a perfect farce?

Mr. Jenkins: I do not think that the hon. Lady is right in her assumption.

Sir D. Walker-Smith: In the context of this matter, would the right hon. Gentleman have in mind the additional burden of work falling on the Prime Minister's staff at present in seeking to reconcile the glaring differences between the answers given by the Prime Minister and those by Foreign Office Ministers on the question of the disclosure to Parliament of statements made by Ministers at the Western European Union and other overseas gatherings?

Mr. Jenkins: I am not aware of any such difference. I understand the position to be that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister said in the House last week that any public statements made abroad would gladly be communicated to this House but that where the statements were made under a normal basis of confidentiality it was of course desirable that this country, as others, should respect that confidentiality.

Mr. Marten: I am not sure whether this supplementary question is in Order—

Mr. Speaker: Order. If the original supplementary question was out of order, then the supplementary arising out of it will be doubly out of order.

Mr. Marten: Could the Chancellor recommend to his right hon. Friend that


when he is answering Questions he should not refer to the transcripts of television broadcasts placed in the Library, which are nothing to do with what he should be saying in Parliament?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a question of salaries. Mr. Osborn—

Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Would it be in order to congratulate the Chancellor on having answered the Prime Minister's Questions so succinctly and got through them for the first time on record?

Mr. Speaker: Order. This has happened for a variety of reasons. It is in order, if unusual, for one hon. Member to congratulate another.

PERSONAL STATEMENT

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Technology (Mr. Alan Williams): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a personal statement about the number of areas in which smoke control orders have been suspended.
I said yesterday, in answer to a supplementary question from the hon. Member for Honiton (Mr. Emery), that there were six. In fact, a further nine were suspended at the end of last week. The total now, therefore, is 15.
As soon as I discovered this error I felt that the House should be informed. I accept full responsibility for this inadvertent inaccuracy and sincerely apologise to the House and to the hon. Member concerned. I would also like to thank you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing me to make this statement.

Mr. Emery: May I thank the Minister for making this statement as quickly as he has and in the manner that he has? As this has been brought to our attention in the national Press, we are most grateful to him that he should do it and do it immediately.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND)

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Donald Dewar: I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law of Scotland relating to divorce and other consistorial causes; to re-enact certain existing provisions in that regard; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid.
In every country divorce law reform is likely to be controversial and Scotland is no exception. The basis of the Bill I now seek leave to introduce is the considered proposal of the Scottish Law Commission. It is somewhat different in form from the successful English legislation of last Session, but very similar in social consequence. I do not favour the sweeping away of the matrimonial offence if it is to be introduced by the backdoor as evidence of the breakdown which I am convinced must be the important question before the courts.
The law is at present inadequate and it is for this reason that the Bill I seek leave to introduce will restate the existing grounds, suitably amended, and will add two further provisions, namely, divorce after two years' separation if both parties consent and after five even if only one party supports the action.
The first proposal would help the couple who, faced with breakdown of Their marriage, have separated. For them, divorce is presently impossible unless they can establish cruelty or adultery. They obviously can plead desertion if the split-up has been accepted, however reluctantly by both parties, as the only solution to incompatibility. It is alleged that the two-year proposal amounts to divorce by consent. That very same charge can fairly be advanced against the existing law.
A determined husband and wife, united in the wish for a divorce, given time, can always satisfy the courts—in the circumstances a method which did not depend on the matrimonial offence might well appeal to those interested in the dignity of marriage. A separation period of two years is completely adequate and sufficient evidence that the marriage is dead in all but the most technical and legal senses.
This is even more clearly the case if the separation has lasted for five years.


I recognise the concern of many for the "innocent" spouse. For myself, I would hesitate to talk in terms of innocent or guilty, because this kind of confident categorisation seems often less than justified. I would ask the House to remember that the blow—and it is a very real and terrible blow—does not fall when the divorce is finalised in the court, but when the husband or wife is deserted, some five years previously. It is then that the very real social embarrassment has to be overcome, the family and neighbours have to be faced. It is then that the impossibility of supporting two families on one wage packet becomes the desperate problem it so often is.
The break-up of a home is always a tragedy. Almost always someone is hurt, but it does not seem to be in the best interests of marriage as an institution that the courts should insist on the existence of a union which is no more than a legal fiction. The spouse in a position to sue under the law may have refused to do so for a whole variety of reasons, ranging from religious conviction through, I suppose, in extreme cases, to revenge, but surely not, after five years' separation, in the hope of reconciliation.
The courts must look at the situation as it exists, at the social facts which are before it. They cannot ignore the interests of third parties. Another home may have been established, children may have been fathered who must remain illegitimate because the courts are limited by an inflexible law which does not allow them to do what I believe they must do, and that is bury with the minimum of bitterness and humiliation a marriage which is dead.
I accept that any major social reform will have its critics. Some oppose divorce as such, basing their views on the deepest religious convictions. I greatly respect these, but divorce is an accepted part of our social machinery and opposition to change which amounts to an attack upon the concept of the law as we know it cannot, I think, be relevant. There seems to be little point in that kind of argument.
I accept that there will need to be a close examination of financial provisions to make sure that the changes introduced into Scots law by the Succession Act, 1964, are the best that can be managed.

I accept that the interests of the children must above all be the prime consideration. But I repeat that this Bill would only be relevant to situations where a lengthy separation was a fact. This is not and never can be a question of a choice between the domestic unit intact and a parting of the ways authorised by a divorce action.
The Bill has been condemned as making divorce easier in some ways. This is to mistake its aims. I do not believe that it would ever be right for the law to be party to the break up of a husband and wife and I also strongly believe that the law must be in a position to deal with a marriage which has been irretrievably shattered by circumstances.
The Bill is no more than a gesture. Its success obviously depends on the will of the House and the willingness of the Government to give time for its passage. The English Measure, not in the first eight places in the Private Members' Ballot. was helped from its Second Reading and I would hope that if my Bill finds favour with the House it might be given a similar chance. This is a matter of Scottish concern only and it could pass through almost all its stages upstairs in Committee. The demands that it would make on this Chamber would be modest.
I believe that it is important that Scottish Members should have an opportunity to take a decision. If it is not taken there will be a gap between the law north and south of the Border and divorce between the two countries will be on a different social basis. Circumstances in which English courts could dissolve a marriage would not justify a divorce in Edinburgh. Whether this would result in the legal migration that some people fear I doubt, but I am certain that it would result in considerable tension and discontented frustration.
There is widespread support for reform in Scotland. The Law Society in Scotland has spoken in favour: of the 58 presbyteries of the Church of Scotland who have considered the matter. 44 have reported in favour of change, six have reached no decision and only eight have attempted to justify the status quo. I would be the first to admit that the majority of those presbyteries favoured changes much more radical than I have included in my Bill. They wanted to sweep away altogether the matrimonial offence, and to make no


distinction between those cases in which the spouses agreed to divorce and those where the petition was unilateral.
I prefer to keep in the safeguards. Despite this, I believe that the Bill which I seek to introduce will be acceptable to most people who are worried about the inability of the law to deal with social problems. Public opinion has, I believe, changed on this matter, as The Scotsman pointed out in a leader on 1st December. It went on to say:
No matter how much any individual in society values the institution and sanctity of marriage it is only human, and indeed Christian, for him to recognise the intolerable situation of a marriage irretrievably in tatters.
It concluded, after pointing to the difficulties of this Measure, that
The Government should have the courage to rescue and promote it.
The Glasgow Herald, with whose leaders I do not always agree, gives its support to the Measure, and says:
The only thing worse than submerging Scots law into English law is allowing Scots law to wither by neglect into irrelevance and absurdity.
If Scotland is to stand against reform and advice, it must be a decision consciously taken and not an attitude dictated by the haphazard uncertainties of parliamentary procedure. I ask for the permission of the House to introduce my Bill in the certain knowledge that this is an issue of importance which affects the happiness of a significant number of people and which must not be allowed to go by default.
I hope that, if I receive the permission of the House, the Government will allow, sooner rather than later, a decision to be taken.

3.42 p.m.

Sir Myer Galpern: I wish to oppose the Motion. I am sure that all hon. Members, having listened to my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Mr. Dewar), would agree that the conclusion to be drawn is that my hon. Friend is anxious for the retention of the institution of marriage. He is concerned to see to it that the law should not interfere in a marriage which is running successfully.
My hon. Friend claimed wide support for the proposition which he offers to the House today. I equally claim that

there is widespread opposition to his proposal. When only a few weeks ago I referred to this fact in the House, I received more than an unusually heavy mail from people both for and against the proposition of the reform of divorce law in Scotland. I confess that the majority were in favour of divorce law reform, but I am sure that every hon. Member knows that people living in adultery are much more vocal than others who are living in an harmonious state of matrimony. Therefore, hon. Members ought not to be badgered by requests from people who find themselves in this state at present.
Paragraph 35 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce, Cmnd. Paper 9678, declared:
The Western world has recognised that it is in the best interests of all concerned—the community, the parties to a marriage, and their children—that marriage should be monogamous and that it should last for life.
I am sure that all hon. Members subscribe to that view, but we know that human frailty is such that that does not always occur.
As the Royal Commission said:
in certain circumstances it is right that a spouse should be released from the obligation of marriage".
The purpose of the Bill which my hon. Friend seeks to introduce is to deal with these "certain circumstances". I ask whether the Scottish divorce law now fails to deal with these certain circumstances in the breakdown of a marriage when we know that at present the Scottish divorce rate has, unfortunately, rocketed by 200 per cent. in nine years. The argument of my hon. Friend is that we have to bring the Scottish law into line with English law. We have heard this argument put forward so often. My hon. Friend, as a lawyer, well knows that the law of England and the law of Scotland differ in many respects. I fail to see why the House should be asked to agree to a proposal which will lead Scotland to hang on the coat tails of England in this matter.
My hon. Friend referred to the Scottish Law Commission. In its Report "Divorce: the Grounds Considered", it sets out the position quite clearly by explaining that the law is
in history, development and detail different from that in England".


We are hoping that it will remain so for a long while to come. Therefore, why change it? Why must we now do something just because this House has allowed such an alteration to the law of England?
My hon. Friend seeks to add breakdown to the grounds for divorce. It is interesting to note that the Church of Scotland General Assembly, while supporting the principle of divorce reform, quoted in their agreed report as their own view the following sentiments:
The addition of breakdown to the existing grounds for divorce makes a mockery of marriage without improving by one iota the integrity of the law of divorce.
My hon. Friend has said that the controversial English Clause would be included in his Bill if he receives the leave of the House to introduce it. This is the Clause which permits unilateral divorce after five years of separation which, for the first time, would enable a man or woman to take advantage of his or her own wrong. Why should a guilty wife or husband by law be enabled to say that the marriage is over when the other spouse is anxious for the marriage to continue, even though it may only be in name?
When a woman marries she regards it as her final career and raises her children. The argument being adduced is that the illegitimate children of a spouse who lives with someone, other than the lawful wife, should receive consideration. In this age of pills, abortions, and all the rest of it, surely, if such children are not wanted, then contraceptive measures can be taken so that he does not create illegitimate children to take precedence over the children of his marriage.
I fail to see why the House should agree to the introduction of this Measure, which has financial implications, as my hon. Friend readily agrees, and where difficulties may be created in terms of pensions and maintenance. At present, if a woman goes to live with a married man, he has no real responsibility towards her, but has responsibility for his legal wife. But, under the law of England, after five years' separation the individual will have to assume

responsibility for the new wife as well as for his erstwhile wife.

These financial difficulties and implications are of such magnitude that the coming into force of the English Divorce Reform Act has had to be postponed for a whole year and will not come into operation until 1971, until some of these matters are resolved to the satisfaction of this House and another place. In the light of these recognised financial and social problems, why should this House step in and set aside the law in Scotland where a spouse is not willing or anxious to have the marriage set aside?

I believe that we would be well advised to leave our Scottish divorce laws alone. They have operated well over the centuries and I fail to see why we should change matters so as to fall into line with England. I feel that in this permissive age the duties of legislators should not be to encourage any increase in or speeding up of permissiveness. We should look at this problem as it affects the people of Scotland. I say that they do not want this alignment with English law at present.

Recently, Parliament passed a Bill dealing with abortion. After only a short period, there are already serious misgivings about the operation of its provisions and its abuse to the extent that strenuous efforts, which I hope will ultimately be successful, have been made for its amendment.

Why should we not await the outcome of the experiment in the divorce law since there are grave doubts about the English Divorce Reform Act? After we have seen how it has operated, we can decide whether the time has come for Scotland to say that it desires to improve or alter the divorce laws. For these reasons, I hope that the House will not give my hon. Friend leave to introduce his Bill.

Question put, pursuant to Standing Order No. 13 (Motions for leave to bring in Bills and nomination of Select Committees at commencement of Public Business):—

The House divided: Ayes 113, Noes 82.

Division No. 53.]
AYES
[3.50 p.m.


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Ashton, Joe (Bassetlaw)
Barnett, Joel


Anderson, Donald
Atkinson, Norman (Tottenham)
Bennett, James (G'gow, Bridgeton)


Archer, Peter (R'wley Regis &amp; Tipt'n)
Barnes, Michael
Binns, John




Booth, Albert
Huckfield, Leslie
Palmer, Arthur


Bradley, Tom
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles


Braine, Bernard
Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Parker, John (Dagenham)


Brooks, Edwin
Jackson, Colin (B'h'se &amp; Spenb'gh)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred


Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch &amp;amp; F'bury)
Jackson, Peter M. (High Peak)
Perry, George H. (Nottingham, S.)


Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N&amp;amp;M)
Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Price, Christopher (Perry Barr)


Carmichael, Neil
Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)
Rankin, John


Crawshaw, Richard
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rees, Merlyn


Cronin, John
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Roberts, Gwilym (Bedfordshire, S.)


Dalkeith, Earl of
Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Roebuck, Roy


Davidson, Arthur (Accrington)
Judd, Frank
Rowlands, E


Davidson, James(Aberdeenshire,W.)
Kelley, Richard
Shaw, Arnold (Ilford, S.)


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Kerr, Russell (Feltham)
Sheldon, Robert


Davies, Ifor (Gower)
Latham, Arthur
Shore, Rt. Hn. Peter (Stepney)


Dewar, Donald
Lawson, George
Silverman, Julius


Dickens, James
Lomas, Kenneth
Spriggs, Leslie


Driberg, Tom
Loughlin, Charles
Steel, David (Roxburgh)


Eadie, Alex
Lubbock, Eric
Stonehouse, Rt. Hn. John


Ellis, John
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, E.)



English, Michael
McKay, Mrs. Margaret
Taverne, Dick


Evans, Fred (Caerphilly)
Mackintosh, John P.
Thorpe, Rt. Hn. Jeremy



Maclennan, Robert
Wainwright, Edwin (Dearne Valley)


Fernyhough, E.
Manuel, Archie
Watkins, David (Consett)


Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)
Marks, Kenneth
Weitzman, David


Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Wellbeloved, James


Fornester, John
Maxwell, Robert
Whitlock, William


Gardner, Tony
Mendelson, John
Williams, Alan Lee (Hornchurch)


Garrett, W. E.
Mikardo, Ian
Williams, Clifford (Abertillery)


Gregory, Arnold
Moonman, Eric
Winnick, David


Grey, Charles (Durham)
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Winstanley, Dr. M. P.


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.


Harnling, William
Neal, Harold
Younger, Hn. George


Hannan, William
Newens, Stan



Haze11, Bert
Norwood, Christopher
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret
Oakes, Gordon
Mr. William Hamilton and


Hooley, Frank
Oram, Albert E.
Mr. Hugh Brown.


Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas
Orme, Stanley





NOES


Alldritt, Walter
Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Peyton, John


Baker, Kenneth (Acton)
Harvie Anderson, Miss
Pike, Miss Mervyn


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Hiley, Joseph
Pym, Francis


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos. &amp; Fhm)
Hunter, Adam
Renton, Rt. Hn. Sir David


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Hutchison, Michael Clark
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Biggs-Davison, John
Iremonger, T. L.
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Brewis, John
Irvine, Bryant Codman (Rye)
Russell, Sir Ronald


Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter
Jopling, Michael
Scott-Hopkins, James


Buck, Antony (Colchester)
Kerby, Capt. Henry
Sheldon, Robert


Cordle, John
Kershaw, Anthony
Silvester, Frederick



Knight, Mrs. Jill
Small, William


Corfield, F. V.
Lane, David
Speed, Keith


Costain, A. P.
MacArthur, Ian
Stainton, Keith


Dance, James
McBride, Neil
Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)


Deedes, Rt. Hn. W, F. (Ashford)
Mackenzie, Alasdair(Ros8&amp;Crom'ty)
Stodart, Anthony


Dempsey, James
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Doig, Peter
McMaster, Stanley
Taylor,Edward M.(G'gow,Cathcart)


Doughty, Charles
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Temple, John M.


Drayson, G. B.
Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)
Wall, Patrick


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Maude, Angus
Ward, Dame Irene


Emery, Peter
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Wiggin, A. W.


Ewing, Mrs. Winifred
Monro, Hector
Willis, Rt. Hn. George


Farr, John
Montgomery, Fergus
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Galbraith, Hn. T. G.
More, Jasper
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Galpern, Sir Myer
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Wylie, N. R.


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
O'Halloran, Michael



Gower, Raymond
Onslow, Cranley
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Grant, Anthony
Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian
Mr. Richard Buchanan and


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Oswald, Thomas
Mr. Esmond Wright.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Donald Dewar, Mr. Alex Eadie, Mr. Hugh D. Brown, Mr. William Hamilton, Miss Margaret Herbison, Mr. John Mackintosh, Mr. Robert Maclennan, and Mr. David Steel.

DIVORCE (SCOTLAND)

Bill to amend the law of Scotland relating to divorce and other consistorial causes; to re-enact certain existing provisions in that regard; and for purposes connected with the matters aforesaid, presented accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time upon Friday, 20th March, and to be printed. [Bill 82.]

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Mr. Speaker: May I make one or two preliminary observations? We are debating various topics on the Consolidated Fund Bill. Any hon. Member who wishes to join in a debate on one of them should let the Chair know. There are 25 debates. I have worked out that, if each of them lasts one hour, and nothing untoward occurs, we shall still be debating the Bill at 5 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

Orders of the Day — BEAGLE AIRCRAFT COMPANY

4.0 p.m.

Miss Mervyn Pike: I am very glad to have the opportunity of raising the question of the Beagle Aircraft Company and that it has been so fortunate as to be the first on the long list of topics for debate on the Bill. I will be as brief as possible.
When I asked for this debate, I had two considerations in mind. The first, which in some respects is the overriding one, is the importance of maintaining a viable British light aircraft industry. I think that the majority of hon. Members want to see such an industry maintained if it can be done in proper economic and financial circumstances.
The second and perhaps most important consideration is the constituency interest which I have in that the Rearsby factory is in my constituency and that 300 or more people are employed there who now face redundancy.
When I put in for the debate, on Friday, it was thought that negotiations for the sale of the business had fallen through and that it was inevitable that the works would close. Indeed, a great number of redundancy notices have gone out. However, late last night I heard that there is reason to hope that negotiations which are going on at the moment may result in the firm being sold and con-

tinuing as a going concern. In the circumstances, I do not wish to say anything to prejudice those negotiations or inhibit anyone who is able and willing to take over the firm and make it into a viable, going concern. I know that other hon. Members will feel the same.
However, that does not hide the fact that a great many of us are very disturbed at the Government's handling of the business in the 18 months in which they have had it under their control. Later, when this business is concluded, either happily or unhappily, we shall wish to inquire fully into the financial and managerial circumstances of the business as we know it at present. That is for the future. For the moment, our greatest concern must be for those who are now facing redundancy.
I have told the Minister about many of the questions that I wish to ask, because I want to be sure that we have the fullest answers to them. It is important to have detailed answers, because these are matters of important human concern.
The people employed at the Beagle Factory heard about their fate on 2nd December of last year. Since then, they have been living in great uncertainty about their future. Negotiations are still proceeding about redundancies. Nevertheless, the great bulk of them are reconciled to the unhappy fact that they will become redundant within the next few weeks.
The main question that I want to ask about the redundancy payments is the basis of their calculations. A great many people on the shop floor are piece workers, and their normal take-home pay is greatly enhanced by bonuses and piece-working payments. Since the receiver came in on 2nd December, the factory has been working short-time. Many people have been on 24 hours' waiting time and, in a great many cases, their wages have been drastically reduced, by £6 or more. This is a great hardship to them. They have not felt themselves able to move from their employment. For some time, on a bare minimum wage, they have been facing commitments which they took on when they felt that the future of the firm was set fair.
I have been told, though I hope that it is not right, that the basis of calculation for redundancy payments is to be the four weeks prior to notice. It will not


be based upon their normal wages, but upon their wages in the present reduced circumstances. Surely it is only fair that the redundancy payment should be based on four normal working weeks before the receiver came in and the statement of 2nd December. That is only natural justice, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give me an assurance on the point.
The other problem is the delay that people have experienced in receiving their redundancy payments. The last estimation, which I received yesterday afternoon, is that it will take from four to six weeks before the payments can be made. That is an improvement on the first settlement, so we are going forward. But, in a situation where people have suffered reduced earnings and the hardships which have gone with them, I hope that it will be possible for them to have their redundancy payments before then. There has been plenty of time for the necessary computations to be made. In the circumstances, we must ask that they receive the payments as soon as possible.
The third point concerns the difficulties being encountered in agreeing a basis for the enhanced redundancy payments. I know that negotiations on this matter are continuing at top level, and, again, I do not want to interfere in any way which will have a bad effect on any solution which is reached. However, the Minister must ensure that an adequate sum is given in the circumstances.
When the right hon. Gentleman made his statement, we were given to understand that the Government would act as a good employer. If the enhanced redundancy payment amounts in many cases to less than a week's wages, that is not good enough. In the negotiations, I hope that the Minister will seek to be as generous as possible and realise the difficulties of many of the workers at Rearsby.
The other very important point concerns the 90 or so people who will be left to wind up the works if it is not sold within the next few weeks. It is important that a new wage rate should be negotiated for them. They are working on the basis of wages which were geared to full production in the factory. At the moment, those wages take account of overt me and production bonuses. If these people are to continue in this situa-

tion of complete uncertainty, they should have a new wage rate. This is of special importance in regard to their redundancy pay if the four-week period is not to be calculated as being the four weeks prior to the receiver going into the factory.
Those are the four main points which I want to put to the Minister about the employees at Rearsby. Of course, what happens there is also pertinent to those employed at Shoreham, who are equally anxious that they should get as good a deal. However, if I appear to fight harder for those employed at Rearsby. I think that that is not unreasonable, and I know that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Arundel and Shoreham (Captain Kirby) will seek an opportunity to fight equally hard for those employed at Shoreham.
Another problem that I want to bring to the Minister's attention is that of the private contracts of some of the managerial staff. There is great worry about them now. I know that the shop floor workers are suffering great hardships and uncertainties, but the middle management is perhaps in a more difficult situation. Many of the workers at Rearsby have benefited from working there, because they have had skilled training and, if they can get suitable employment, it may be that that training will be to their advantage in the long run.
But some of those in management, who have been there for a considerable time and have had great difficulties with the ups and downs at this factory, are on private contract, and it is essential that these private contracts are honoured in full. There is some fear that they will be regarded as unsecured creditors and will have to fight for their rights. This would be the greatest of injustices if it were so.
I should like an assurance from the Minister that these people will have their private contracts honoured in full. In these circumstances, we must have great regard for the difficulties of these managers who have given so much of their time, skill and energy in trying to bring this company round.
I believe that the superannuation problem has now been settled satisfactorily. It caused a great deal of worry and anxiety, as the Minister knows. This sort of thing cannot be counted as being


in the realms of good management in any way. If we claim to be good managers and employers, it is essential that, when people are faced with uncertainties and redundancy, short time, and all the rest, they should know what their rights are and what they are to receive by way of pension and benefits. I am glad that the superannuation position is now clear. I hope that these people will get their superannuation payments as quickly as possible.
I believe that the Works Committee, and particularly Mr. McCavish, at Rearsby, and Mr. Clark, at Shoreham, have acted remarkably well in the circumstances in which they have found themselves. Both Mr. McCavish and Mr. Clark have been remarkably patient and have shown extremely good leadership. They have worked very hard on behalf of their members. They have been co-operative with everybody. We owe a great debt to them and to the management, but particularly to Mr. McCavish and his Works Committee, for the way that the negotiations have been conducted. I am sure that many people on the shop floor think that they have not worked hard enough on their behalf, but I should like it to go out from this House that those of us who have been deeply involved realise how hard they have worked and can and are doing their best now.
I should also like to express appreciation to the Melton Employment Exchange, which is doing its very best to make certain that people get good jobs. This is all on the credit side.
Another matter which I want to bring up, but which I will not elaborate, because you, Mr. Speaker, have asked us to be brief, and I know that other hon. Members want to catch your eye, is the position of the suppliers to this firm. The words and actions of the Minister led all of us to believe that all was set fair both for Government support and for the future of this factory. Only a month or two before the receiver went in, the Minister was at Rearsby praising everyone for the progress that had been made and giving everyone to believe that they were sot fair for some time.
In these circumstances, it is understandable that the suppliers should believe that they had the full backing of the Gov-

ernment, that this was a going concern, and that they were really within their rights and it was wise of them to give this firm the utmost credit to enable it to go on with economic production. I hope that their position will be safeguarded.
The hon. Member for Leicester, South-East (Mr. Peel), who is at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and cannot be here today, has worked closely with me in this matter and wishes me to speak up for his constituency, as does my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South-West (Mr. Tom Boardman), who is in Australia, and who was particularly concerned about the suppliers. All three of us are anxious that once this business is over the whole matter should be thoroughly investigated and that there should be a full-scale inquiry into the future of the firm. Given the right finances and the right management, I believe that there is a future for this firm.
Aircraft have already been delivered to Holland, Australia, Sweden, Switzerland, the U.S.A. and Iraq. These are all markets which have been broken into. The Beagle is a first-class aircraft. I have seen it and flown in it. I have not flown it myself. I wish that I could. I have heard from customers and from my constituents what a first-class aircraft it is. If we could get the finances and the management right I believe that we could have a first-class light aircraft industry based on this aircraft in this country.
Germany, Belgium, Japan, Zambia, Canada and Sweden have already ordered aircraft. Most of us know of Sweden's particular interest in the Bulldogs. Orders have been placed, or are hoped for, for about 100 aircraft in the near future. These are all hopes for the future. These are all pointers to show that this firm, if properly run and given a proper chance, could be viable.
After all the difficulties that it has gone through, production was picking up. The total number of Pups completed was 154, the total number of Pups delivered was 128, and the total number of sets of major components was 220. The rate of production was at least getting up to one Pup a day and one and a half sets of components every day. Bulldog production is now well under way, and the


first deliveries were hoped to be made in August or September this year. Production of the B206 has ceased, but there are 11 completed aircraft in stock, plus 11 sets of parts.
With first-class aircraft on the stocks, I believe that, given the right sort of financial help, management, guidance and support, which it has not so far had from the Government, we can look forward to a viable British light aircraft industry. In the meantime, we must make certain that the employees at this factory who have worked so hard are given the greatest consideration. I hope to hear from the Minister today that the points that I have raised will be adequately met.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: A number of hon. Members have risen who have not indicated to me that they wish to join in this debate. We are on the Consolidated Fund Bill, but I must preserve each debate to a topic. It will help if the Chair knows in which debates hon. Members wish to speak. Mr. Russell Kerr.

4.18 p.m.

Mr. Russell Kerr: It is a genuine pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Melton (Miss Pike), who has certainly earned the gratitude of the House for the fair-minded and cogent way that she has stated the case for her constituents and the local employees of the Beagle Aircraft Company.
The hon. Lady said that she had a constituency interest in this matter at Rearsby. Likewise, I must say that I have a trade union interest. I speak not only as a Member of Parliament who, like most other hon. Members, is interested in the economic consequences of Beagle's failure for the employees involved, but also as a member of the National Executive of the Association of Scientific, Technical and Managerial Staffs which, I am sure the hon. Member for Melton knows, is one of the unions principally involved and which recently sent a deputation to see the noble Lord Delacourt-Smith on the question of severance pay and the other entitlements of the workers, including holiday pay and that kind of thing.
The reason for the special concern of my union with the Beagle situation is that this is not just another company,

but a company wholly owned by the Government—a de facto nationalised industry—and for which the Government must accept a far greater measure of responsibility, particularly concerning the workers involved, than would be the case were this a private firm in imminent danger of collapse.
Speaking for the moment for my union executive, I say categorically that we are not prepared to accept from the Government, who I repeat are the sole owners of Beagle Aircraft, standards of behaviour with regard to potentially redundant employees which, however common in the jungle of private enterprise, have so far, happily, been almost totally absent from public enterprise which, by and large, has tended to treat its redundant employees with reasonable generosity and even in one example not 100 miles from London Airport, with something rather like profligacy. However, that is another story which I am sure would catapault me rather rapidly out of bounds were I to continue it.

Mr. Robert Howarth: It needs to be said.

Mr. Kerr: Neither I nor the people for whom I speak can possibly accept the proposition that employees of this wholly Government-owned company can be treated in the cavalier way in which many thousands of employees who have been made redundant by commercial failure, or mergers, or take-overs, or whatever, have been treated in the private sector of industry.
As we see it, when the Government take over a concern like Beagle they are doing much more than acquiring a commercial interest in a company about whose commercial future they can afford to be relatively indifferent. In addition to hazarding public money by investing in this type of commercial enterprise, the Government are accepting certain obligations, some legal, but for the most part moral, which mean not only that contractors and others who supply the firm with goods and services, know that they are dealing with a company backed by the resources and integrity of the Government—what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister would, I am sure, call a "copper bottomed" proposition were he able to be with us this afternoon—but, also, that employees who make the


decision to go to work for this company take this element of guarantee into consideration when they seek such employment.
Without this apparent security, I have little doubt that many hundreds of Beagle employees, and particularly those who joined the company after it was taken over by the Government three years ago, took very much into account when deciding about the nature of the firm which they were joining, and also contrasted the relative security of this type of employment with other possible job opportunities which they forgo when they agree to accept an offer of employment from Beagle.
That brings me to the question of severance pay and other entitlements of those who have been threatened with redundancy. As the House probably knows, the Government have informally intimated their intention of making available a sum of money for distribution to employees as enhanced severance pay. It is understood throughout the company that the sum of money mentioned by the Government is £75,000, though there are rumours abroad that if both their arms are twisted half way up their back the Government may be persuaded to provide as much as £100,000 for this purpose.
That higher figures sounds quite generous, but, in fact, it is nothing of the kind. After employees' entitlements have been met, including the proper amount of notice, or money in lieu, due to them either under the Contracts of Employment Act, or under individual contracts, it is my union's estimate that the rumoured £100,000 pay out by the Government will result in about one weeks extra wage or salary for the employees concerned. We hope that we are wrong in our figuring, but that is how it seems to us at the moment.
If that is so, we say that it is a quite disgraceful way for the Government to behave in a situation where their responsibility is total and complete, and doubly so at a time when astronomical sums of public money are being lashed out to subsidise one and another section of private industry in which the Government neither have, nor have claimed, any equity.
I should be out of order if I were to refer to the activities of the I.R.C. in

this debate, but if the tight-fisted attitude which it appears likely the Government will take in regard to the Beagle employees, their own employees in this case, is contrasted with the profligacy which they have shown towards major private enterprise which has been engaged in merger and take-over operations in the recent past, I can understand the reports that Mr. Arnold Weinstock, and others of his ilk, have been "laughing all the way to the bank".
I can only hope that the Labour Government will get some small compensation for their generosity, in the shape of a lifelong promise of support from Mr. Weinstock and his friends that, come heaven, hell, or high water, the Government have their support.

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is wandering away from the Beagle.

Sir Douglas Glover: He is reading, too.

Mr. Kerr: Only close notes.
The Government's last word has not been heard, and therefore, while there is still time, I should like to appeal to them to face their responsibilities. If, as I hope, they decide, against their present intention, to keep this company in existence, which, as the hon. Lady said, will involve a major reorganisation and perhaps a major change of management, this will be the best solution of all. But if this is not now a serious possibility, after all that has happened under the present management, then we, as responsible Members of Parliament, have the right to demand that the employees affected are treated with consideration if not generosity. Anything less would, in my view, be a betrayal of those who put their trust in the Government.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Monro.

Mr. Julian Amery: Mr. Julian Amery (Brighton, Pavilion) rose—

Mr. Speaker: Does the right hon. Gentleman wish to take part in this debate?

Mr. Amery: Yes.

Mr. Speaker: I asked hon. Members to let the Chair know. Mr. Monro.

4.26 p.m.

Mr. Hector Monro: I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike), who has put the case very well from the point of view of her constituents—the dedicated aircraft workers who now, unfortunately, are likely to find themselves redundant.
I want to look at this issue more in the context of the light aircraft industry. I have always been a great supporter of light aviation, and, therefore, it grieves me to find Beagle in the position in which it is now, although I am not surprised, having been to both Rearsby and Shoreham. At this stage, I am not going into the details of the financial situation, because I am sure that this will be investigated later.
I think we accept that Beagle arose out of a small company, but that perhaps it grew too quickly, and now we find ourselves going into the 'seventies without a British light aircraft capable of reasonable production in relation to the potential market. The world market is doubling every five years, and there could be upwards of 1 million light aircraft in the world by 1980. I am talking about light aircraft valued at less than £12,500.
Why have we failed to compete in this market? I think that primarily we must refresh our memories of a particular paragraph of the Plowden Report of 1965, which said:
Manufacture of light aircraft ought to be well suited to the aptitudes and resources of British industry. The market is buoyant, the sums at risk in development are not excessive, and lower wage rates should give British manufacturers a marked initial advantage over their American competitors.
We must not look at this too much with hindsight, but the Government accepted that hook line and sinker, though I regret to say they did not appear to follow it through, and, therefore, must accept responsibility for the position as we see it today.
They purchased the Beagle Aircraft Company, which was then producing good solid aircraft which were rather expensive to buy and to fly. I have flown the Airedale for many hours, and I have found it an excellent and reliable plane. It was one of the last designs of the old Beagle Company. The

Government should have realised—and this is important to my argument—that it is no use setting up a light aircraft industry without giving encouragement, however modest, to the operators of British aircraft and equipment, and this includes radio equipment, because it is devastatingly expensive, and in relation to the total cost of a light aircraft this, more than anything else, probably puts off purchasers.
I accept that there is an import duty on foreign aircraft, but we pilots look very jealously at European countries such as France and Italy which give generous incentives to those operators who fly aircraft made in those countries. I think they realised, and we ought to have realised years ago, that a healthy home market is vital to the production of light aircraft. It is absolutely so in Britain as well, and it is sad to recall that it was the present Government who removed the petrol tax rebate which was very valuable to light aircraft operators.
I wish to make some comparisons in relation to the Beagle position. Jodel, in France, has 120 workers yet it produces 200 light aircraft a year similar to the Beagle. The French Government give substantial help to the operators. In Italy, Oscar has 80 workers who, by this year, will be producing 80 aircraft per year. Yet Beagle has upwards of 1,000 workers and has now produced not a great deal more than 100 aircraft.
Looking at this very much in the context of comparable countries on the Continent, there are also the Cessner and Piper in America, and Rallye, in France, are parts of enormous empires, but I do not think they are strictly comparable with what we are talking about today.
But under the present management, Beagle designed the Pup and continued developing the 206. I have flown them both and I am very impressed with the Pup, though eventually, if this was to be a viable aeroplane, the four-seater would be the one to develop. I do not think that one can survive indefinitely with what is only a training aircraft. People who can afford a modern aircraft want a four-seater for touring purposes and communication. The Pup was a delight to fly and was fully aerobatic, which is rare among modern light aircraft; and, whilst it did have its initial snags, that


was not anything to be critical of in a new design. They were principally problems with the canopy and the wheels and have been overcome.
I think that what could not be overcome was the multiplicity of parts. I am told that the Beagle Pup has perhaps one-and-a-half times as many parts as a comparable American plane, so it is perhaps this cost which defeated the company. It is certainly one of the reasons why we have had disappointing production.
But now that development costs can be written off—I note the expense to the taxpayers—surely there can be a future for the possibility of another company purchasing the rights to carry on production of this aircraft. I urge the Minister, through his help with the receiver, to do all he can to see that a sale is finalised, because it is to the interest of all of us as taxpayers that this should happen.
The Minister must also realise that if the Beagle Company is purchased by another company it is essential that he take complementary steps to see that the operators of British aircraft and equipment are given incentives and encouragement to use British equipment. We also want to think, in terms of the possible market for light aircraft, of what other aircraft are being built in the United Kingdom. Very few aircraft are being built in comparison with the market. The Britten-Norman Nymph, the Condor—which is a lovely plane to fly—and Luton are all producing light aircraft in very small numbers. There is an air tourer which is now being built in New Zealand and reassembled here.
If purchasers were found for Slingsby and Handley Page we cannot give up hope of finding a purchaser for Beagle. We must try to make Beagle a continuing enterprise for a while longer to effect a sale both at Rearsby and Shoreham.
There are after all many aircraft on the production line—the B206 and the Basset which we have produced. We have sold 40 civil offers and 22 Bassets and I understand there are 17 on order. Again, I hope that the Royal Air Force has not forgotten that we have a British light aircraft industry and more so in relation to the Pup and the Bulldog. After all, I understand that we have

actually delivered 121 Pups and that there were 276 on order, many of those for export. We do not want to forget that, either. There are 58 orders for the Bulldog for Sweden and 13 for other countries.
Where does the Royal Air Force stand in all this? It has stood on the fence. It is an exceptional training aircraft and the Chipmunk must surely be obsolete by now. Has it written off the Bulldog entirely? I hope not. There are substantial assets at Rearsby and at Shoreham and I hope that this will tempt another company to take over Beagle.
The nation has put a lot of cash into the Beagle enterprise and equally important into aviation engineering. We have produced an aircraft which has been easy to sell and have had first-class test pilots selling these aircraft throughout the world; and they have sold well because they have handled so well in the end. At the same time, Britain has always had a very high reputation for its design of airframes, but we fall down on finance and production.
That was not the fault of the workers in the constituency of the hon. Lady the Member for Melton. The fault was that organisation, and help from Government sources did not materialise. I think that the climate is right to make every endeavour to keep a light aviation industry in this country. We must give incentives to operators. I impress upon the Minister—and I think that this is the crux of the issue—that there should be encouragement for aviation in this country and for British construction.
I hope that the Minister will realise that, somehow or other, in the interest of the taxpayers, as well as the aircraft industry, he must make one last effort to find a purchaser for this company.

4.39 p.m.

Mr. Robert Howarth: I intervene briefly to express my concern at the developments with regard to the Beagle Aircraft Company. I begin by commenting on three features of this short debate so far.
First, I am sorry that speakers subsequent to the hon. Lady the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) have not had the benefit of hearing both my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary and the


Opposition spokesman. It would have been useful to the debate if they could have been heard before it concluded rather than, as I gather, right at the end.
The hon. Lady, who was fortunate to obtain first place in the Ballot—I dread to think what would have happened if she had been placed No. 15 in the list—criticised the Minister for making optimistic statements in the summer and she feels that subsequent developments contradicted what he said then. She should look to some of her own hon. Friends who have, in my opinion, been knocking Beagle very badly for a year or two now. I have taken part in several debates in which lion. Members opposite made remarks which were not at all helpful in the struggle which Beagle was having. I wish that the hon. Lady, and some of those hon. Members whom she appears to be representing by proxy, had at that stage stood up for the company and the work which it was doing.
My hon. Friend the Member for Felt-ham (Mr. Russell Kerr)—he has had to leave the Chamber—spoke of the Government's direct responsibility. My comment to him is that it was the Government vv ho, much to their credit, rescued Beagle in the first place and spent many millions of pounds of public money on the company. It was a step which I and other hon. Members urged them to take. I am sorry that the Government have now decided not to give support in the future, but it is worth remembering that, but for the Government's earlier action, Beagle would have gone out of existence some time ago. Tribute should be paid to the Government's decision and their initiative at that time.
It may well be that the management was at fault. Perhaps the Company's policy in the models it went for, at least initially, was in error. It is hard for me to judge, not being an expert in the way the, hen. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) is, being a pilot. We can all be wise after the event, but I consider that tribute should be paid to the support given by the Government to Beagle at least up to this time.

Sir Douglas Glover: I have listened to the debate with a good deal of fascination. Why should the Govern-

ment be congratulated on having taken over a company which, apparently, was going out of business, and for injecting millions of pounds into it, when it is now going out of business?

Mr. Howarth: I and other hon. Members urged the Government to do it because, as the hon. Member for Dumfries said, we believe that Britain should try to carve out for herself a place in the manufacture of light aircraft. There are other companies, one of which is quite successful. It would be most regrettable if this company were to go out of existence. With the sort of growth about which the hon. Member for Dumfries told us—it is well known to me, too—to contract out of this field is short-sighted.
The investment of millions of pounds in Beagle by the Government has given Britain a first-class aircraft. Even the B206, the twin-engined aircraft, was in many ways a highly successful, sophisticated aeroplane, though it took on the Americans in precisely the field in which they are dominant. That, undoubtedly, cost the company and the taxpayer a great deal of money, but having flown in it, at least as a passenger, I find it a very attractive and comfortable aircraft, and it has sold in export markets against strong American competition.
It is particularly in the design and production of the Pup-Bulldog, the single-engine aerobatic aircraft, that Beagle has come up with a first-class aeroplane and one which has already been proved to have a tremendous potential, able in the long term to bring quite a good return to the company and to the country as a whole. It is worth considering for a moment the success of the Britten-Norman company, mentioned by the hon. Member for Dumfries. This company has had Government support, by the way. [Interruption.] I think that at one stage it allowed the company to continue when, without that help, it would have been in great difficulties. As with the Pup and the Bulldog, that company has found the right part of the market, as we have seen from its success in the Britain-Australia race, designing a first-class aeroplane and producing it in large numbers for export.
As I said at the outset, but for Government support, the Beagle Company would have failed long ago.
I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham in asking my hon. Friend


the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to uge his right hon. Friend to reconsider the decision not to continue supporting the Beagle Company. I reckon that I may do that as a Member on this side who believes in a partnership between Government and industry—I think that the popular word at the moment is "interventionist"—rather in contrast to the views of some right hon. and hon. Members opposite. I look forward with interest to hearing what the Opposition Front Bench spokesman has to say on the question, unless he chooses to skip round what might be an ambarrassing subject for him. There is a good measure of ambivalence on this topic opposite. There are hon. Members who talk, as did their spokesman at the weekend, as though we ought to leave the market forces to work out their own and the nation's salvation.
In the circumstances, I cannot understand how hon. Members opposite can still urge the Government to continue supporting Beagle. We on this side who believe that, if a case can be made for Government support to a company which is important in the national interest and which eventually can give a return on the money, can urge the Government to reconsider their unfortunate decision and, one hopes, give support to Beagle.
The bill mentioned was £6 million. I understood that it would be spread over a period of years, so that it would not literally be a bill for £6 million deposited at the Treasury in one go. It might well be spread over three or four years, which makes the amount of money much more acceptable.
I can only hope that my hon. Friend will look again at his calculations. I hope that the Government have taken into account both the good export prospects of this aircraft and—I am not sure that this is often taken into account at the Treasury—the import saving which will result if the Pup and Bulldog particularly, and the B206, I hope, continue in production. Without these aircraft, we shall have to buy foreign aeroplanes for the various requirements of the Royal Air Force and private owners, which would be extremely regrettable and, in my opinion, bad business.
I believe that, in the long term, there can be a return on the money already

invested in Beagle and on the money now requested to enable the company to keep going. On every count, therefore, I strongly urge the Minister to look again at this request for support for the Beagle Company.

4.48 p.m.

Mr. Julian Amery: I apologise for not giving notice to the Chair that I wished to intervene in the debate. Some of my constituents work in the Shoreham Beagle factory, but I had not intended to intervene until I listened to some of the speeches already made, at which point I felt it my duty to say a few words on this subject.
I had a good deal to do with the beginning of the project. I persuaded the Royal Air Force to take it on. I flew in the prototype; in fact, in one of the prototypes the day before it crashed, resulting in a fatal accident. I thought that both marks, the two-engine and the single-engine, showed great promise, and the sales and orders since confirm that that was so.
I agree with the hon. Member for Felt-ham (Mr. Russell Kerr) that, if the company is to be wound up, it is the Government's duty to see that the people who work in it have proper treatment. But I wonder even today whether we should not persuade the Government to look again at the whole question.
I have been very critical of the present Government's policy towards the heavy, expensive range of aircraft, the cancellations which took place early in the lifetime of this Government, of the TSR2 and P1154, and so on. I think they made great mistakes, but they based themselves on the philosophy in the Plowden Report. One of the things that that report dwelt on was that we had played a leading part in the development of light aircraft and that this was one of the ranges of aviation in which we could still play a world rôle. I did not agree with a great deal of the Report, but that was a sensible comment.
My own impression and information is that the Ministry of Technology felt strongly that we had a part to play in light aircraft and that Beagle was an instrument through which we could reassert the lead which we once had in this range. It was on the initiative of the


Ministry of Technology that the Government and the Treasury were persuaded to take or Beagle when it first got into difficulties. My regret is that the Ministry of Technology no longer seems to be in charge of the project and that the Treasury has reasserted its control.
Whether one is thinking of public enterprise or private, when one is dealing with aircraft, even with light aircraft, the period over which one builds up sufficient sales to reach a break-even point is a long period. One must take a risk and back one's project, which will often cost more than one thinks. Having gone as far as they have—both the Conservative Government, when they persuaded the Royal Air Force to start adopting Beagle, and the present Government, when they decided to take over control of the works themselves—having put their hand to the plough, they should go on.
If they did—it is only a question of the cash flow which is at stake—for another two or three years, if they ran the risk, I think that they would find that they could look back on something of which they could be proud. As it is, they are withdrawing far too soon, at a point when the hopes which have been set on this aircraft have not been disappointed, when it has, technically, proved a great success, when the order book is improving markedly and when there is every chance of making a great British achievement in a field in which, traditionally, we have been leaders.

4.53 p.m.

Mr. Fergus Montgomery: I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) that this is an unfortunate business. I could be forgiven, I think, for giving a wry smile when the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth) was speaking proudly of how this Government had rescued Beagle Aircraft. If this is the way that this Government perform their rescues, then, with this Government as a friend, who needs an enemy?
My hon. Friend spoke movingly about the employees of Beagle who live and work in her constituency. I should like to say something about the people who are owed money by this firm. This was touched on by the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr), who used

a phrase of the Prime Minister's about "copper-bottomed guarantees". So far as the creditors are concerned, there seems to be too much bottom and not enough copper in the guarantees so far. It is a plea for the creditors that I am making today.
A firm in my constituency was a major sub-contractor to Beagle Aircraft. It granted a great deal of credit to the firm. When the Minister became virtually the sole shareholder, the firm believed that there could be no doubt about the financial credibility of this firm. It is alarmed now, because it is not clear whether the Minister will meet his obligations.
I would remind the Minister that an agreement was signed on 12th December, 1966, in which the Minister solemnly said that he would take over all liabilities, with certain exceptions which were clearly noted. If liabilities have accrued since the date of that agreement, I think that the Minister has a responsibility.
Because of the concern felt by the firm in my constituency about the amount of money due to it from Beagle Aircraft, I wrote to Lord Delacourt-Smith. I am afraid that his reply can only be described as "naÏve" All he told me was that I should tell the firm concerned to register its interest with the receiver and manager, and gave me the address. Any firm will immediately register its interest: we did not need Lord Delacourt-Smith to tell us that.
But much more to the point was the article written by the hon. Member for Bosworth (Mr. Wyatt) in the Daily Mirror, under the title "No Way to Run a Business". The hon. Member, with whom I do not agree very often, said:
The Beagle Aircraft Company is owned by the Government. That is why suppliers, including a company of which I am chairman, were willing to give it credit.
It never occurred to me that the Government would dishonour the obligations of a company which it owned. Otherwise, when the Beagle Aircraft Company was slow in paying its debts, as it was, supplies would have been put off.
Now, however, the Government is hiding behind the fact that Beagle Aircraft is a limited company whose affairs are in the hands of the Receiver. Therefore, according to the Minister of Technology. Anthony Wedgwood Benn, it will pay its debts only if it has any money left after the Receiver has sorted things out.


No respectable company would fail to meet the debts of a subsidiary. For the Government to do this is to follow the worst business ethical standards, not the best.
Mr. Benn is very keen on the Government getting more and more mixed up with industry. With this example in mind, he will find that in future suppliers will be inclined to say, 'Cash with order' or no dice.
And that is no way to run a whelk stall or a business.
I do not agree with this Government or any Government getting more and more mixed up with business. I do not believe that this Government could even run a whelk stall, but I agree with the general tenor of that article; this Government have a moral responsibility to the creditors of Beagle Aircraft. These debts have been incurred by a company in which the Government are the sole shareholder.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Melton on initiating this debate. I hope that, after the Parliamentary Secretary has replied, I shall be able to congratulate the Government on doing what is honourable. I hope that they will not leave these creditors, who gave credit in good faith, to whistle for the money due to them.

4.58 p.m.

Mr. John Farr: I, too, would like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) on her initiative in raising this matter. This is an important subject to her and her constituents and, in a lesser degree, it affects my constituents, because a number of Beagle aircraft workers live in and around my constituency. My hon. Friend clearly dealt with the problems of any redundant worker, which my hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery) also mentioned—the problems which will arise should the company be wound up and the debts remain outstanding.
I should like to take a more hopeful view. It is my earnest wish, as it is of hon. Members on both sides, that Beagle should continue. The ideal outcome is the possibility—I understand that it is a possibility only—of this company being taken over by a British company and continued as a producer of British aeroplanes.
There are faults in the past history of Beagle. But, as my hon. Friend the

Member for Melton said, they certainly do not lie with the work people. They have done a first-class job for Beagle—both at Reasby and at Shoreham. Should the worst come to the worst and the company fold up, their interests must be fully and properly protected.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) gave some illuminating statistics of the labour forces in comparative companies on the Continent of Europe. He put his case in such a clear way that it seems apparent to the layman that real economies in the labour force of Beagle will have to be made if this is to continue as a viable company in the production of aircraft.

Mr. Robert Howarth: Many hon. Members would not accept the comparison which the hon. Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) made with the companies he mentioned on the Continent. I understand that the aircraft produced by those companies do not compare with the sophistication of the Pup and Bulldog and that they are relatively simple aircraft.

Mr. Monro: The hon. Gentleman is wrong. If he looks at the latest models of, for example, the Jodel from France and the Oscar, from Italy—I will show him photographs of it later, if he wishes—he will agree that they are every bit as sophisticated as the Pup.

Mr. Farr: I was about to say that wherever the fault lies it certainly does not appear to lie, from what I have learned from my constituents and my hon. Friends, with Beagle Aircraft. It has been demonstrated that its planes are first-class. Perhaps they are a little too sophisticated in terms of the number of parts required to assemble them. However, they are first-class, reliable machines for which it has been proved there is a good market at home and overseas.
I want to discover where the fault lies for Beagle's temporary failure. What has been the rôle of the Government in this affair? As far as one can discover, in 1966 the Government spent a lot of money taking over a big debt which the company owed to Pressed Steel. That debt amounted to about £3·3 million. In July, 1968, presumably after receiving advice in depth, they decided to fully


acquire the company at a cost of just over £1 million and to discharge certain additional debts which the firm had incurred, and that cost a further £½ million, making a total of about £6 million of public money invested in Beagle.
Whether or not that action was right I am not prepared to say. But if the Government were prepared to invest £6 million of the taxpayers' money in Beagle Aircraft only 18 months ago, something must be wrong when, only 18 months later—this is merely a day in terms of aircraft production—they suddenly put up the, butters and say, "No more".
Either the advice which was given to the Government in July, 1968, was inadequate and failed to look sufficiently far into the future, or the advice which they have received today is inadequate and fails to look far enough ahead. There must be a fault somewhere when only 18 months after a massive injection of capital the Government have declined to carry on with the project and have decided to wash their hands of the whole thing.
There is no doubt that there is great confidence in the types of aircraft Beagle produces. I hope that the present negotiations will be successful, and I make a suggestion which I trust the Minister will pass on to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. If this company, at this twelfth hour, so to speak, is saved within the next few days and continues manufacturing as a major British light aircraft firm, will the Minister recommend the Chancellor to agree that for five years the import duty on foreign light aircraft should be doubled so that Beagle is given a breathing space?

5.5 p.m.

Sir Douglas Glover: It is the tradition of the House for hon. Members taking part in a debate such as this to declare any interests that they may have. I have an interest to declare. It is that I know nothing about the aircraft industry.
After what the Government have done, it would be wrong and not in the national interest for them to allow Beagle Aircraft to close down. I cannot understand why, when the State took over an organisation such as this, the debts owed to Pressed Steel, worth £3 million, were immediately

paid. Considering that creditors are often paid, say, 2s. in the £ before a viable, alert, free-enterprise organisation takes over an organisation, thereby saving itself a lot of money, why the State felt it incumbent to shoulder this amount of debt I do not know; but perhaps that is beside the point.
What I have heard in previous debates on the aircraft industry is akin to what has been said today. For example, when my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) pointed out the basis of the light aircraft industries of Italy and France, the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth) immediately rose to declare that Beagle aircraft were much more sophisticated. Perhaps that is part of the trouble and, to be blunt with my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery), he is not without blame in this respect.
I have never had the nerve to intervene in an aircraft debate before. Having heard these debates for about 17 years, I am convinced that the whole industry is geared too much to making what is acceptable to the R.A.F. When producing a light aircraft it is, therefore, not a question whether it will be suitable for Mr. "Joe Soap" in which to travel from A to B, but whether the R.A.F. will place an order for, say, 50 machines.
I suggest that in Beagle aircraft we have what in motor car parlance is the Rolls-Royce, or at least the Rover 3·5. These are de luxe civil private aircraft. In the 'twenties and 'thirties the motor car industry was producing supersophisticated models. Eventually, Henry Ford broke through with a motor car for the masses, and that is what is required in the light aircraft industry. The masses in Europe and elsewhere will buy an aircraft such as this if a break-through can be achieved.
We have heard how Beagle aircraft are capable of aerobatics. If anybody persuaded me to buy an aircraft the last thing I would want would be to loop the loop. I would want to travel on an even keel. In other words, half the fault lies in the fact that we, who for years had a reputation for producing quality—history will show the quality of Beagle aircraft and whether sales come in—are producing in this firm aircraft in the luxury class compared with what is


being produced by the company's competitors.
This is exemplified by, for example, what is being produced by Britten-Norman. I understand that this company is producing a superb light aircraft that is no more than a truck with wings. It is simple to fly and can land almost anywhere. It has no sophistication and, therefore, suits the unsophisticated market. It is selling well and, I believe, has a good future.
Of course, we do not take the same pride in that as in aircraft produced by the Beagle organisation, but we have to bear in mind in this changing growth of the mass market that we are getting out of a market in which people want Rolls-Royce or Daimler limousines and into one where they want jalopies, mini-minors and Ford T models.
My hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries told me that the average production of these aircraft in Italy works out at one aircraft per man per year. That gives an indication of the sort of atmosphere in which the industry should work in producing private small light aircraft. If we want to produce an aircraft which will meet ancillary needs of the R.A.F. with a semi-military correlation, it is a totally different problem. It is completely non-viable in the civilian field, because it is too expensive and will have to be subsidised by the State, as no one will want to buy it with the exception of a few Greek shipping tycoons who can afford to do so. It is beyond the market demand.
What seems to have gone wrong with the Beagle organisation? When I am told that it has an employment figure of 1,000 compared with companies in France and Italy producing one aircraft per man, there must be something wrong with the basic thinking of the company. This does not come back purely to the management and whether the factory is run efficiently, but to the basic thinking of what it is that the company is trying to do. The Government here have a long-run responsibility. They took this organisation over and took on a lot of debts. It would be a disaster if, having put money into it and the organisation having a reasonable chance of breaking through, when a company is supposed to be independent but is in fact Government-owned, it is abandoned.
Government guidance is very important, but all the time there has been to much thought that what is being produced may be of some use to defence or the structure of the R.A.F. and not nearly enough thought has been given to how to get into the growing and potential mass market which has to produce a very unsophisticated piece of machinery at the lowest possible price and the fewest man-hours in construction and the lowest cost of maintenance with the fewest spare parts.
I therefore hope that the Government will change their mind and allow the Beagle company to go on. I hope that they will give it a remit to go for successful production of aircraft which is less sophisticated than it has been in the past.

5.14 p.m.

Mr. F. V. Corfield: I, too, join in congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) for raising this matter, which is of great concern to employees and those who represent them, to those who are interested in light aviation in particular and aviation generally, and, of course, to those who, as all of us have, have a responsibility for overseeing Government investment.
We are, however, to some degree inhibited this afternoon from pursuing this matter in the detail which may well be appropriate in a week or two for fear that something may be said which could prejudice the purchase of this company by an outside body. I am bound to say that, although I have been in touch with several people who are interested, it would not be fair to hold out any great hope. I think that it is remote, but even though it is remote let us hold on to the hope and trust that it will materialise.
I was fascinated by the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Sir D. Glover). I understand that the aircraft in which purchasers are interested is a more sophisticated model, the Bulldog rather than the earlier marks of the Pup. The reason is that the earlier models of the Pup—the Bulldog is technically a Pup but let us consider them as separate aircraft for the purpose of the debate—have been selling as mark I for £4,350 and mark 2 for £5,350. There has been a failure to recognise that it costs over £6,000 to produce each item.


What sort of costing and management that is seems beyond my comprehension.
I very much take issue with the hon. Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth), who suggested that hon. Members on this side of the House had been banging the product. I refer to the Committee stage of the Industrial Expansion Bill, when my hon. Friends the Members for Worthing (Mr. Higgins), Eastleigh (Mr. David Price), Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) and others put forward perfectly responsible and valid criticism and questioning of the commercial wisdom of this operation. It must surely be accepted that the commercial wisdom of undertaking something is quite different from the technological possibilities or desirability.
If money is no objection almost anyone can produce a perfect article in his field. It must always be a question of what looks like being a commercial runner. This is our criticism. From information that reaches me I have to warn the Minister that very serious questions will have to be answered. The present is not the time for that, but I ask the hon. Gentleman to find for a future occasion what commercial advice was taken.
The hon. Member for Bolton, East said that the Government should be congratulated on their initiative, but they have done the very worst possible thing they could have done. They have supported And rescued the organisation and are paying off all the creditors and acquired this company to get it going to enable 128 Pups to be delivered, largely abroad. Who is to back them up? What is to be the reputation of the British aircraft industry as a whole if parts cannot be supplied in two years' time? What arrangement have the Government in hand for ensuring that the back-up of this aircraft can be maintained?
This is essential to the sale of the Pup and to the reputation of British business and the aircraft industry. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell us that an organisation will be kept going to back up the aircraft already sold. I also remind him that if there is a possibility of this enterprise being sold it rests very largely on the continuance of the Swedish Air Force order. I hope that he will be able to give an assurance that every effort will be

made by the Government to ensure all the help the company needs in retaining that Swedish order for 56 Bulldogs with an option on a further 45.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that in the Standing Committee on the Industrial Expansion Bill, the then Joint Parliamentary Secretary said:
The Ministry will be entitled to nominate the chairman, managing director and financial director, which, in effect, gives the Ministry a majority on the Beagle board."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Commitee E, 14th March, 1968; c. 368.]
It is clear that, in addition to its being the sole shareholders, it had a legal right to nominate the whole lot. What is abundantly clear is that the Minister had managerial control beyond responsibility for seeing that managers of competence and ability were appointed to carry out the Ministry's policy in regard to the running of the company.
I want to refer back to the statement which the Minister presented to the Standing Committee at the instigation of my hon. Friends giving an account of the situation of the Beagle Aircraft Company as he saw it at the time it was proposed that the Government should buy it. At that time the total value was estimated to be £1,475,000. We were told that the total Government finance required for the transaction was estimated to be £5·6 million, the purchase price together with interest being £1·1 million, and Government payments up to 31st March 1968 £2·5 million and further Government payments £2·0 million.
The Minister further said that it was envisaged that the fluctuating balance of working capital would be provided by bank facilities. The banks were being invited to extend credit on the face of the Government ownership. Again, I would like the Minister to tell us if there is a guarantee that the banks debt will be met.
The Minister then told my hon. Friends that the undertaking's estimated further cash flow requirements up to a break-even point in 1972 were spread as to April 1968-March 1969 £1·25 million, 1969–70 £0·75 million, 1970–75 £0·5 million—total, £2·5 million.
I want to emphasise the point made by the hon. Member for Feltham (Mr. Russell Kerr) that this company was a de facto nationalised corporation. Those


who extended their credit, as well as those who offered their labour, had every justification for believing that that gave a degree of guarantee to both the financial stability and probity and the permanence of their employment.
I strongly stress that we shall want to know what arrangements the Government propose to make with regard to people who extend credit, many of them, from letters I have seen, solely because they felt they could rely on the fact that the enterprise was owned by the Government.
Are we to assume that from henceforth any undertaking that extends credit to the Coal Board does so at its peril because of the state of the board's accounts? This is exactly the same principle. I hope that we shall be assured that something more respectable will be put forward to secure these people. My hon. Friend the Member for Brierley Hill (Mr. Montgomery) quoted a case. I have details of another case here; a firm of solicitors wrote to my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing in exactly the same strain.
At the end of the Minister's statement to the Standing Committee some very rough effort was made to recognise what my right hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Amery) pointed out, that there is inevitably a considerable delay between the conception of an aircraft and reasonable cash flow situation. What I find absolutely staggering—other hon. Members have drawn attention to this—is that the Minister's statement was made in April, 1968, and on 2nd December, 1969, he told the House that he had decided that this is not worth taking further from a commercial point of view—because this can be the only interpretation of his statement. We can only boggle at the ineptitude of the forecasting of the cash flow situation on which the Minister made his initial decision. In the opinion of my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, the House is entitled to a much fuller explanation of this on a future occasion than we can ask for today.
It is abundantly clear that the total assets of the company which are now available for a purchaser are made up of £98,000 only in really tangible assets—that is, plant and machinery £81,000, office furniture and fittings £17,000. The property comprises two leaseholds, one of

which has expired, and the other of which has only a short time to run. According to a statement by the receiver, the whole of the rest of this sum, coming to £1·2 million, it taken up by work in progress, which, if nobody buys the undertaking to continue that work, is absolutely useless except for scrap. I would think that £10,000 is a generous estimate for the value of the scrap.

Sir D. Glover: Did not the same position arise when the Government made their previous rescue operation? Did they not pay a grossly over-inflated price for the assets then?

Mr. Corfield: Yes. I indicated that the Government bought at an inflated price but appeared to be taking an entirely different attitude to their own creditors and employees, as indeed they are.
So there is very little in the way of assets other than scrap value, unless a purchaser can be found who is prepared to go ahead with the building of these aircraft.
If the Government believe that there is a case for a light aircraft industry in Britain, and if they believe that the Beagle Pup and its modifications can continue to command a market—I think there is a case for this—there is an overwhelming case for disposing of this company, if they can get an offer, at a very "knock down" price, because it is not worth more than scrap value if they do not get a bid, except for the sub-contract work for Rolls-Royce, Hawker Siddeley and Bristol Aircraft.
To heap even more coals on to the fire, it is a remarkable thing that this company was operating the aerodrome for the boroughs of Worthing, Brighton and Hove and even managed to make a loss of £13,000 a year on that. The managerial situation here terrifies me.
I hope that the Government will not attempt to resist a full investigation into the affairs of this company—into the use of public money—at an appropriate time. We all hope that a purchase will be made, but it will not be made if we hold out for the maximum value for a lot of tooling, and so on, much of which already is probably obsolete and the rest of which will become scrap unless somebody can be found to carry on. The important


thing is to find somebody who is competent to go on building that aircraft. What he pays for it becomes of secondary importance in the light of the accounts as they stand.

Mr. Russell Kerr: Was not the statement which the hon. Gentleman has just made about the economics of local airport management naive, if not simple minded?

Mr. Corfield: Not at all. Anyone with any sense who undertakes under a contract to run an airport for a firm, for a borough or for an individual will fix a rate under the contract. In my view, he should not make a loss. I am nor saying that airports can necessarily be run except at a loss. It is for the owners of the airport, if they want it to be run, to stand the loss, not for the agent who is running it.

5.30 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Technology (Mr. Neil Carmichael): We have had a very interesting debate and are grateful to the hon. Lady the Member for Melton (Miss Pike) for raising the matter. As she probably knows, in the Ministry of Technology, we have had much correspondence from hon. Members, both those whose constituencies are interested in the Beagle Aircraft Company and those whose constituents include creditors of the company. Therefore, many of the questions raised in the debate have already been looked at. One or two new ones have arisen. Those which I am unable to answer I will take away for consideration, and no doubt there will be further opportunities for Questions in the House about them.
Perhaps it would assist the House if I first went through the history of the acquisition of Beagle Aircraft Ltd. and why the Government became involved. It arose very largely out of the Plowden Committee's Inquiry into the Aircraft Industry. That report, made available in December, 1965, recommended that at the present juncture light aircraft manufacture merited Government assistance. It added, however, that the period of such assistance should be strictly limited. The committee took the view that the Government should review progress from time to time in the hope that within a few

years the industry would be self-sufficient. If, on the contrary, the light aircraft business was not approaching this objective by then, the case for continuing assistance would be open to question.
In early 1966, Pressed Steel, the then owner of Beagle, informed the Government that it proposed to cease the operations of Beagle. The Government wished to preserve a stake for the United Kingdom in the expanding world market for light aircraft, and agreed in June, 1966, to purchase the assets of the company as soon as statutory authority had been obtained, the Minister being precluded from manufacturing civil aircraft under a proviso to Section 1(i) of the Civil Aviation Act, 1949. Authority was obtained under Section 12 of the Industrial Expansion Act, 1968, and the transaction was completed on 30th July, 1968. In the intervening period the company was kept going by grants from the Government on a "no profit, no loss" basis for Pressed Steel.
Government advances in this period totalled £3·3 million, part of which was, of course, reflected on acquisition by the Government as work-in-progress and in the written-off development costs of aircraft not yet in production. Since July, 1968, the company's needs for working capital have been provided by the Government in the form of interest-bearing loans. Interest payments on these loans were deferred until March, 1971, and have not, therefore, been a factor in the company's failure.
But the problem exercising many people is: what went wrong? Basically, it was a question of scale. As was explained to the House during the passage of the Industrial Expansion Bill, the company then expected to break even in 1972. Despite considerable achievements in the intervening period, the board came to the conclusion in the autumn of 1969 that a commercially viable future would require the development and introduction of a wider product range, including new designs of twin-engined aircraft.
Production would be needed on a large scale, demanding larger sales, and these necessitated a significant penetration of the American market, where the bulk of world light aircraft sales take place.


This programme, the board estimated, would require some £6 million of new capital over the next few years and probably more later to build on the foundations which would by then have been laid.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: Is the hon. Gentleman saying that August, 1969, was the first time that it came to the Government's notice, as managers of the company, that it would be necessary to extend the range of products?

Mr. Carmichael: As has been explained frequently by my right hon. Friend, the board of the company, composed of distinguished and experienced people, was required to run the company as a commercial concern. This was repeatedly stated in the House, and, indeed, was asked for and wanted by the House. But, on examination of the future market, the board concluded that the product range needed expansion and that the sales force should be increased, and that this would cost about £6 million.

Sir D. Glover: Sir D. Glover rose—

Mr. Carmichael: I cannot give way again. It would be unfair to keep on doing so. On the list there are 25 subjects. I have frequently been in the situation, when at the Ministry of Transport, of having the Adjournment debate after the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. In fairness to those who are well down the list, I must get on.
I come now to the question why the Government did not provide the additional £6 million requested. As the Minister said in the House on 2nd December, 1969, the Government regretfully concluded, after giving the most careful consideration to the company's proposals, that, having regard to the need to contain Government expenditure, there was not sufficient priority to justify the investment of further public funds in Beagle in the face of many competing demands on national resources.
The House then had an opportunity to ask Questions why the Government felt it necessary to take this step. It was not a step which my right hon. Friend, who had been very anxious to support the light aircraft industry, felt happy about. My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, East (Mr. Robert Howarth) asked

whether the balance of payments advantages were taken into account in the decision not to support Beagle any longer. One of the factors always taken into account in these matters is the effect on the balance of payments, and, naturally, consideration was given to it in this case before the decision was taken.
The whole point arises whether it was a mistake to take Beagle on in the first place. The Government have no regrets that we made this attempt to bring the industry back to its feet. There is inescapably a risk of failure in projects of this kind which the Government support. Indeed, if there were no risk there would probably be no need for Government support. When it becomes clear that success cannot be achieved at an acceptable cost, we must be prepared to cut our losses, as we have done in this case.
How much has been spent? In the period between mid-1966 and July, 1968, non-repayable grants amounting to £3·3 million were made to Beagle. This money was used to finance the operations of the company, and no profit, or loss, was made by the owner, Pressed Steel, during this time. Acquisition of the assets in July, 1968, together with interest payable and the legal costs of incorporating a new company to which the assets could be transferred, cost some £.1·1 million. Since July, 1968, the company's financial requirements were met by loans totalling £1·5 million.
How much has been lost? The final loss cannot be precisely calculated at the moment. It will, for example, depend on the sum realised for the assets. However, I would expect the greater part of the £6 million or so expended—much of it before the company was taken over—to be irrecoverable.
Many hon. Members have asked about the receivership and what is involved, and what has been happening since the receiver moved in. The receiver and manager has been holding discussions with a number of parties concerning their possible purchase of the undertaking as a whole on a going concern basis. The Government have held themselves ready to join in talks at any time and have, indeed, had discussions with prospective purchasers on several occasions.
Unfortunately, the prospects have receded. While certain possibilities are not


finally dismissed the receiver had by last week reached a point where he had no alternative but to issue redundancy notices on a considerable scale. Nevertheless, a substantial part of the business is being, continued for the time being and may be disposed of in part sales in due course. Regrettably, uncertainty as to the future is unavoidable in a receivership situation, and it is impossible to give any firm long-term assurances to the remaining workers.
At this point, it would be wrong of me to try to give any idea which companies, both here and abroad, have expressed interest in the Beagle. It is something better left to the receiver in making his commercial dealings.
I have been asked about support of aircraft in service. This is a matter for the receiver and manager. It is not unreasonable to expect the rights to manufacture spares, etc., for existing aircraft to be taken over by another or other companies. The same applies to the R.A.F. Bassets as in the case of civil aircraft. Certainly, spares and support services will be required for the Bassets for a considerable time.
I come now to the position of the management. When a situation such as this arises, it is understandable that there should be a tendency to blame the management or the workers. In this debate, some hon. Members have said that one cannot blame the management and others have said one cannot blame the employees, by implication supporting one group or the other. It cannot be said in this case that a top-heavy management structure was created after the Government put money into the company. The number of directors was smaller than under the former ownership. The overhead structure was pruned, leading to a number of redundancies fairly soon after acquisition by the Government in 1968.
A number of other points have been raised in the debate which have worried probably more people than any other aspect. These include questions about redundancy payments and the superannuation fund. With regard to the superannuation fund, the arrangements which the company had made with the life assurance companies broke down on the appointment of the receiver. Arrangements have accordingly been made between Her Majesty's Government

and the life assurance companies to ensure that valid claims are met as if contributions to the funds had been fully paid up to the date of the receiver's appointment.
All workers made redundant are assured of their statutory entitlements under the Redundancy Payments Scheme. The hon. Lady asked about redundancy payments specifically in relation to Rearsby, particularly with regard to piece-workers. The rules for calculating the payments are laid down in the Redundancy Payments Act, which provides that the entitlement for pieceworkers is related to their average earnings in the period of four weeks prior to the date on which they are given notice. Because there has been some falling off in work and, therefore, in earnings at Bearsby recently, this means I am afraid, that the amount of the redundancy payment to be made under the Act will be affected.
This is also the case with practically every company running down. Wages or earnings are, naturally, less than otherwise. I understand that the same problem does not exist at the Shoreham factory because piece-work earnings are not involved. Arrangements will also be made for severance pay, which will to some extent make allowance for the redundancy payments.

Miss Pike: Am I right in thinking that the people on piece-work can look forward to more generous severance pay because of the difficulties of the rundown in earnings?

Mr. Carmichael: This will ultimately be a matter for discussion between the receiver and the trade unions concerned. Rather than speaking in terms of global sums, I would prefer that a scheme was worked out between the receiver and the trade unions and then an approach made to me about the total. It may seem that either the global sum or the other way are the same, but I think that we are sophisticated enough to know that there is quite a difference.

Mr. Russell Kerr: It is my understanding that this reference to the global sum comes essentially from the Government's way of looking at things rather than from the workers concerned. They are, naturally, concerned to have so many extra weeks' or months' payment in lieu.

Mr. Carmichael: My information is that the Government have suggested to the trade unions concerned that they should go about this in the way that I have described. I know that some figures have been used; £75,000 was mentioned earlier. I do not think that this figure was recognised by the Government. What I am now suggesting is that the trade unions and the receiver should get together and work out a reasonable and fair scheme.

Mr. Russell Kerr: I understand that they have at least had informal consultations along those lines. Would my hon. Friend not agree that if those negotiations were to result in something like only one week's pay additional to their statutory entitlement, that would be a very undesirable result?

Mr. Carmichael: I hope that whatever result is arrived at will be reached by agreement between the two sides. The Government have asked Mr. Cork, the receiver and manager, to carry on discussions with the employees' representatives with a view to a satisfactory severance pay decision. My latest information is that there is still some way to go.

Mr. Corfield: If an agreement is reached which is in excess of the legal entitlement—which we all hope may be possible—can we take it that the difference will be made up by the Government and not the other creditors?

Mr. Carmichael: There has been an understanding with the Government. Mr. Cork will be acting for us not as the receiver in this instance but as the representative of the Government. It will be an act of grace on the part of the Government. As to further employment of redundant workers, I understand from the Department of Employment and Productivity that there have been consultations and that the Department's local organisation is making special arrangements to assist such workers. Teams have interviewed them.

Miss Pike: Can the Minister give me any assurance about the wage levels of those who will be left at the old place, presumably to carry on with the spares—the 90 people to whom I referred?

Mr. Carmichael: I have made inquiries but without result at present. If the hon. Lady will give me time to look into this I will write to her. The Government have received representations from a number of creditors from the company which raise a number of issues some of which are still the subject of legal advice. A further statement will be made as soon as possible.
Hon. Members have asked if there would be an inquiry into what happened at Beagle. This suggestion certainly will not be overlooked but at present I cannot see how an inquiry would be justified. Naturally any question relating to the general policy of the Government in the acquisition of Beagle and its performance can be raised in the House. I am sure that with the interest that hon. Members have not only in the aircraft industry but in the whole question of the Government's rescue of companies, many hon. Members will avail themselves of the opportunity to discuss this case.

TRANSPORT (NORTH-WEST REGION)

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Edwin Brooks: I am glad to have this opportunity to debate present and future transport costs in the North-West. I share the views of the authors of Strategy II, published in 1968 by the North-West Economic Planning Council, that of all the many and urgent regional problems which cry out for attention, transport should have the first priority.
Of course, this is not to forget the importance of housing, schools, unemployment or environmental improvement. Far from it. The North-West has inherited more than its fair share of squalor and urban blight from the 19th century; and, as the present unemployment figures for Merseyside show, this is no time to relax our efforts within the development area.
Nevertheless, against this historic background of dirt, dereliction and the dole, it is significant that the planning council stated unequivocally that
we put as first priority"—
and those last words are underlined—
among programmes of investment in the region the development of better transport


facilities—especially roads and public passenger transport.
The council went on to argue that the North-West should be treated as a single unit for passenger transport services. The Government were subsequently to reject this view, at least for the time being, but with the recent publication of massive land-use and transportation studies for the two conurbations of Merseyside and Manchester, S.E.L.N.E.C., this seems an appropriate time to seek clarification from my hon. Friend of his reactions to this battery of major proposals.
In any case, it is clear that decisive changes, and fundamental and far-reaching choices, are imminent. We have acquired passenger transport authorities for the two main urban concentrations. Presumably, and hopefully, they will want to rationalise and improve facilities. In addition, we shall soon be seeing the strategy plans required for these areas under the 1968 Town and Country Planning Act. Port re-organisation, and possibly co-ordination and integration, is imminent along the Mersey estuary and the Ship Canal.
The recent announcement by Shell of giant investment at Stanlow and elsewhere seems to presage these ports becoming one of the greatest petro-chemical centres in the world. Yet another aspect of change—although I hope not decay—is seen at Liverpool Airport, where the events of the past week have given cause for concern rather than optimism about the future.
Furthermore, in this catalogue of developments in the pipeline, research is being done into the feasibility and value of a multi-purpose barrage across the Dee estuary, which could profoundly affect population change and environmental planning in a wide region extending deep into north-east Wales. New and exciting possibilities are being examined, from hovercraft across the Mersey—with significant implications for widening the passenger catchment area of Speke—to advanced high speed trains which British Railways anticipate will soon be going to London. All these technological advances which we can forecast during the 'seventies invite bold speculation.
For example, is it so far fetched to think of the North-West's great airports becoming jointly the fourth London air-

port, linked to the Metropolis by such a fast train service that from Ringway or Speke to Central London might be little more than an hour's journey? And much of that time could be occupied profitably in performing functions and formalities which are now carried out at the airport itself. Moreover, such an airport undertaking, with regular scheduled international services, could do much to open up the industrial north to the commerce and tourism of the world.
Whether such speculations are idle, only time will tell. But I think that we must accept that the whole region from London to the North-West has already become super-city. We have, in other words, what the Americans of the northeastern seaboard call megalopolis—stretching across England and linking the two great estuaries on which our principal ports lie. During the past four years, with the introduction of the electrified rail services—this is an enormous improvement by British Railways—and confirmed by the alignment of the M1 and the M6, we in the North-West have become part of a national urban axis linked by high speed transit; and the arrival of the high-speed train and the extension of the motorways, will inevitably lead to the further consolidation of megalopolis.
There is still much to be done, notably in completing the east-west motorways, and especially the long overdue link between the M6 and Manchester and Liverpool. But much has been done, and with the exception of the mind-baffling perversity of the new Euston, British Railways deserve high marks for the new image of sophisticated, sleek transport which they have created. They have shown that public transport can be glamorous and that is no small achievement. I think there is a moral somewhere. But I do not wish to discuss morals this afternoon. Instead, I want to focus more narrowly, in the limited time available, upon the future transport and related land use of the conurbations, and particularly in view of my own interests and competence, I shall concentrate upon Merseyside.
Merseyside, in common with all conurbations, shows the dilemma familiar to us since Buchanan's "Traffic in Towns". How do we reconcile the irreconcilable, as the pessimists might put it? In other


words, how do we maintain a tolerable, let alone civilised, urban environment in our cities in face of fuming motor cars, and usually even more fuming drivers, who democratically seek to enjoy maximum personal mobility and accessibility? There is no simple answer, but at least we recognise that compromise is inevitable.
Our problem is that of finding the right mix—and the word is mix, not mix-up—of public and private transport permitting and helping people to enjoy their motor cars and their freedom whenever this does not conflict with and destroy the mobility of everyone else. So far, so good.
The crunch comes when one turns to specific cases, and for Merseyside the difficulties are exceptionally severe. No other conurbation in Britain is divided by an estuary which functions effectively as the open ocean, carrying huge oceangoing vessels between the two urban segments. Bridging the Thames at London is child's play compared to bridging the Mersey estuary. In the early 60s it was forecast that a six-lane bridge would have the dimensions of the Golden Gate at San Francisco and would cost between £25 and £30 million.
Although, oddly enough, the forecast costs do not appear to have escalated during the 60s, the Report of the Merseyside Area Land Transportation Study, known as M.A.L.T.S., of a few months ago estimated the cost of such a project to be still about £25 million. This excludes many inevitable and additional, although sometimes hidden, costs. As for alternative vehicular crossings, tunnels appear to be no cheaper per lane. The combined costs of the two twin-lane tunnels now being built between Wallasey and Liverpool will work out even more expensively than the forecast cost per lane of the high-level bridge advocated by M.A.L.T.S. as the third major crossing of the estuary.

Mr. John Tilney: I agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman has said, but would he not consider that a bridge from Speke over to Eastham would be very much cheaper? It would do away with all the blight that has descended on areas of housing in his constituency and also on the north side of Merseyside, and, judging from the cost of a bridge over the

Derwent at Hobart in Tasmania of about the same distance, at one-third of the cost.

Mr. Brooks: This is certainly an argument which the Minister would do well to consider. There are a number of possible alternatives to the crossing which the M.A.L.T.S. report is advocating. Had there been time, I would have suggested some possible modern examples which might have involved duplication of triplication of the Widnes-Runcorn Bridge and which could be done more cheaply than the high-level type of bridge required in the lower estuary.
The point the hon. Gentleman is making is that £25 million is a lot of money, and I agree. Before we spend such a sum, we should be satisfied that this is the only alternative before us. The £25 million itself only hints at the exceptional cost burden entailed in trying to facilitate private commuter flow between the northern part of Wirrall and the Liverpool shore. At a time when we are promised severe restraints upon public expenditure—and I see little prospect of any sudden euphoria in the Treasury in the 'seventies—we should be chary of swallowing such jumbo-sized projects uncritically. Instead, we need to probe the traffic philosophy which underlies such recommendations and to see if an alternative model of circulation is worth considering.
Personally, I have some reservations about the case for this high-level bridge between Aigburth and Bromborough. Of course, one can extrapolate traffic flow in terms of existing desire lines, anticipated location of jobs in the decades ahead and increased motor car ownership. But it is hardly necessary to say that such forecasts are based upon many uncertainties and variables, many assumptions about policies pricing and location, which we cannot forecast with certainty.
I should like to put a handful of questions, out of the many which could be put to my hon. Friend, to try to clarify these assumptions. For example, is it really sensible to spend vast sums of money to make life apparently easier for the private commuter whose use of costly road space is notoriously inefficient? Should he not so far as possible be encouraged to travel to work by public transport? By building such bridges as that now proposed, are we not likely to


release a great deal of suppressed demand and merely generate fresh motor car traffic, demonstrating a sort of Parkinson's law whereby motor car traffic expands to fill the available road space?
Where will the commuters in the peak traffic flows park their cars in Liverpool? How much will they have to pay to park? How much concealed subsidy will there be from the local authority—a subsidy, if paid, which itself encourages further effective sterilisation of high cost land in city centres? Indeed, what calculations have been made about the elasticity of demand for such facilities, assuming that the traveller will have to pay full economic parking fee s—ar d why not? And what if he also has to pay an economic toll charge to cross the bridge twice a day?
I realise that there cannot be any precise answer to such questions, but they are questions which need to be put. I simply query whether it is realistic to expect the commuter to want to pay up to £1 a day for the privilege of using his car to travel to work or to shop. Unless he is using his car, as perhaps some motorists do, as a secret potency symbol, I would expect him to turn instead to an efficient. reliable and comfortable public transport system.
But there is the rub, of course, for the present public transport system on Merseyside is getting worse each year. It is not just a malady for Merseyside, of course, and we all know of the vicious circle of more costly and more irregular services leading to fewer passengers, still higher costs and fewer and more irregular services. We all know how workers who have been decanted, as the planners say, to the outskirts now find it increasingly difficult to get to their down-town place of work in the early morning or indeed at other times.
There is frustration and disgruntlement and sometimes actual loss of earnings and absenteeism in consequence. Journey times lengthen as inexorably as fares go up and up, and the plain fact is that we are heading for a complete collapse of a viable passenger transport system. In this, it is the poor who will suffer most, the old-age pensioners, the children going to school.This is a matter which a Labour Government must view with alarm

and on which they must take urgent and constructive action.
We all have our own particular solutions. Mine is to make public transport in inner areas totally free or extremely cheap. As a start, I would allow—

Mr. Michael Heseltine: Could the hon. Gentleman explain, if transport is to be free, who actually will pay the bills?

Mr. Brooks: The principle is no different in effect from the present arrangement whereby the passenger transport authorities are empowered to subsidise those services which are making a loss. Therefore, I would assume that this would come from tax or the rate fund.

Mr. Heseltine: If I understand the hon. Gentleman aright, he is not advocating that public transport should be free, but that it should be paid for by the ratepayer or the taxpayer.

Mr. Brooks: Yes. I am sure the hon. Gentleman did not assume that I thought the whole thing could be done purely by the good will of the busmen. I am suggesting that the actual cost burden should not be borne at the point of consumption, but should be a charge on the general tax fund. Indeed, there are good precedents for doing this in many situations indeed, this is done in many countries. I am arguing that we should extend and develop the principle which is already enshrined in the 1968 Transport Act and which was forecast in Lord Beeching's famous report.
Even if we do not go as far as that, and I have no doubt that there would be difficulties in going quite so far, I seriously suggest, and have done so on former occasions in Questions to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that we might consider allowing public transport costs involved in journeys to work to be set against income tax. The service would need to be expanded, there would be a need for better basic wages to be paid to platform staff, and, at the same time, we should have to grasp the nettle of restricting private traffic in those inner areas where the bus is the optimum means of transporting large numbers of people to work rapidly and safely.
This would, of course, cost money. But so does the high-level bridge. Who is to


pay for it? What is the justification for £25 million to be spent on such a scheme? Indeed, many other schemes designed to make life easier for the private motor car commuter cost a great deal of money.
My approach would be to cut down atmospheric pollution, save much life and limb and peace of mind and to enable people to save a good deal of the outlay which at present goes on the vain struggle to rush from one traffic jam to the next. But even if my solution seems naive or fanciful, at least it is fair to ask why the relatively cheap plans to improve the attractiveness of public transport on Merseyside have been ignored for so long.
Ten years ago I first heard of a proposal to double the peak hour carrying capacity on the Mersey Railway and link the three main terminals in Liverpool by an underground loop line. The total cost of the scheme was estimated in 1963 at under £6 million, or roughly the cost of a single lane of the tunnels now being built to handle motor vehicle traffic. But although in 1968 parliamentary authorisation was given to go ahead with this rail scheme, it has yet to get off the ground, or, indeed, to begin under the ground.
I have been hoping for many years to see some rationalisation of the bus services in Wirrall and no doubt in other parts of Merseyside, and the provision of regular bus services through the Queensway tunnel. Perhaps the new passenger transport authority will provide a better framework in which to settle these long overdue matters, but I see little signs of urgency so far.
Incredibly, the agreements which demarcate the Crossville and former Birkenhead Corporation bus services in Wirrall date from the beginning of the 1930s. But here we are, 40 years on, and still the services are afar and asunder —only more so than ever. Instead of expansion of the public transport system by the electrification and extension of the railways of Wirrall, we have had cuts and closures. Instead of the sort of cost benefit reasoning which led to the Victoria-Euston line being built in London, which certainly does not pay its way, on Merseyside we have been obsessed by narrowly defined commercial profitability.
I accept that the Government have done far more than their Conservative predecessor to recognise the hidden economic benefits of public transport, and certainly the recent Transport Act has permitted explicit subsidies to be granted where the case can be made out. But the time has come to tackle the problem at a more fundamental and urgent level. We must try to capture for urban public transport the sort of image which airlines such as B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. and the inter-city electrified train services have already acquired. An image of smooth, effortless, gracious service is a far cry indeed from the present reality.
If we can talk of investing £25 million in a Golden Gate "bridge across the Mersey, as does M.A.L.T.S., why not think in equally glittering terms of investment in public transport? Why do we always forget the hidden burdens of giant urban roadworks? There are the burdens of planning blight which have already cast their shadows on my constituency and in relation to which I have a Question down to my hon. Friend for answer today. There are, for example, the costs of worsenment which have to be suffered silently, or at least helplessly, by those whose houses and amenities are depreciated by the proximity of a noisy and smelly highway.
I do not want to discount the value of the motor car. Far from it. Where it can fulfil a legitimate part in conurbation traffic circulation, let it be fully encouraged. I have long felt it desirable to provide car parks at the Wirral railway stations which would provide the right sort of mix of the two types of transport giving each the optimum conditions in which to operate. But it was only after years and years of pressure and protest that, at long last, and only last week, an announcement was made of such a car park to be provided at Rock Ferry station, in my constituency.
Much more could be said and done on this, and there are many examples which I could give, including possible developments at Birkenhead Park, at Upton, perhaps at Prenton, with an extra halt provided on the railway, or even further afield at Hooton, especially if the Liverpool to Rock Ferry line is electrified to the south. All these specific and detailed suggestions and many more are discussed at length and generally favourably in M.A.L.T.S., which, in general, is an


admirable report. But they were also examined and commented on favourably as long ago as 1963, yet nothing has been done. The problem is one of will and energy in getting anywhere these days.
I hope that my hon. Friend will at least ensure that those sections of M A.L.T.S. which bear on the improvement of public transport will be given much greater priority and urgency and that, before we tacitly accept the validity of the case for the high-level bridge, on which I have deliberately concentrated my remarks, we will check on its indispensability within an integrated public-private transport system.

6.18 p.m.

Mr. Walter Clegg: It is always a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks), because his speeches are nearly always interesting. Today's was no exception. While I do not go all the way with him in the latter part of his speech, I, like most other people in the North-West, accept the plans laid down in Strategy 2, which gives first priority to roads. Without adequate roads and connections with others parts of the country, the North-West will not be prosperous. These roads are essential for its redevelopment.
The hon. Gentleman questioned how the new roads were to be paid for. That, in turn, raises the question of expenditure which, in these straitened times, is a subject which must concern us all. It is all very well for an hon. Member to say, "I would like a road here, or there", without facing the problem of how it is to be paid for.
I do not represent a Merseyside constituency. My constituency is outside the development area. In the case of Merseyside's roads, payments are made by the Government in Merseyside to industries which nave been established there for a long period, and it might be worth transferring the money which is paid in regional employment premium to the development of roads. A good road system which will enable Ford, Vauxhall, Port Sunlight and others to move goods away from Merseyside quickly and, at the same time, enable Merseyside to have gcods coming into its ports quickly would be of more benefit than paying a premium per worker to already established industries.
Most of what I have to say has to do with a problem which affects my constituency and the whole of the Fylde. I ask the Minister to give further consideration to the motorway link between Preston and the Fylde coast. I raise this because, recently, great concern has been expressed about the number of accidents on the road between Blackpool and Preston, and various criticisms have been made at inquests and generally in the Press.
Some of the criticisms have been levelled quite unjustly at the county council. In its road master, bridge master and surveyor, Lancashire has one of the most experienced road engineers in the country. His design of the first part of the M6 for Lancashire set a pattern not only for the country, but for the rest of the world, and I know that Mr. Drake has had this plan of a motorway between Blackpool and Fylde in his mind for a long time. It is the only true solution. In the long run, it would be a waste of money to try to titivate the present road. It would be much better if the motorway were built quickly.
I can give the Minister reasons why it should be done. We on the coast feel that we are not given priority because we are not an industrial area. However, there is a tremendous volume of traffic flowing to Blackpool, which is still the biggest seaside resort in the country, let alone to other coastal resorts in the Fylde area. This is one of the busiest roads in the country.
However, that is only part of the advantage to be gained from the new highway. The other help that we would get from this link is that traffic would be diverted from the central areas of Preston which become clogged up in the summer and, at times, in the winter as well. If there is to be an announcement in the coming weeks about the new city of PrestonChorley-Leyland, it will mean a greater concentration of traffic in the area while the development takes place.
So the industrial town of Preston would benefit largely from the Preston Northern Bypass, which is the official name for this road. It would take out of the narrow and congested streets of the centre of Preston a tremendous volume of traffic, so that the Fylde coast could be approached from the north, the south and,


when the Calder Valley Road is completed, from the east without going into the heavily built up area of Preston.
The real demand for this road is that it will probably save more lives, in Mr. Drake's estimation, than any other single motorway because of the tremendous volume of traffic. In my constituency, I have seen the impact that a motorway can have on road safety. A motorway running through my constituency alongside the A6 has reduced radically the number of serious crashes causing death or serious bodily injury. It is for that main reason that I plead with the Minister to look again at the scheme. It will save many lives and serious accidents.
Another relevant argument in favour of it is of direct concern to the construction industry. Those engaged in road building are extremely worried about what is to happen when the present road programmes are completed. They fear that they will have to break up their construction teams. We all know what happens once such a team is broken up. Heavy equipment is idle, eating its head off, and it means an increase in costs on motorways which are built in the future.
It may be that the Minister will not be able to reply to my questions today. However, I hope that he will look at this matter again with a view to considering whether this urgent scheme cannot be put into the immediate programme.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Dan Jones: I am most indebted my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) for raising this subject. Since North-East Lancashire is goverened by the Lancashire County Council, we share in the transport problems of the North-West, although it might be said with truth that over the years we have not had the attention to which I believe that we are entitled in that part of the country.
We are essentially a bread and butter area. The whole region from Padiham to Barnoldswick is highly industrialised and has reason to expect better transport facilities than there are today, although matters have improved in the last four or five years. However, in some cases, there is an urgent need for even greater improvements still.
The hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) referred to the Calder Valley road. That road has been projected, and its significance to North-East Lancashire is tremendous. In recent months, I have spoken to a number of industrialists who have come to North-East Lancashire from the Midlands and the South. They tell me that they can get from London to the Continent and back quicker than they can travel from London to Burnley. That cannot be a satisfactory answer to our problems. The proposed Calder Valley highway is of great importance, and an announcement that that road is to be scheduled would give out industrialists a lot of encouragement to expand, since we are an intermediate area.
My next point concerns the Bury bypass, another road which is of outstanding importance to North-East Lancashire. A definite promise was given that that bypass would be fitted in when the Lancashire to Yorkshire motorway was being constructed. I would like an indication that that is still the case, because of its great significance to this part of Lancashire.
My last point touches on the importance of the rail connection between North-East Lancashire and the North-East ports. I suppose that it could be argued that the volume of freight is not great. At the same time these ports will assume a new and far greater significance to the whole of North-East Lancashire if we eventually join the E.E.C. One of the first steps—and not a very expensive one—would be to get a modern signalling system all the way along this railway track.
We in North-East Lancashire are never as fully considered as we are entitled to be. If the points that I have made could be met, the industrialists and the population of the area would be greatly obliged to the Minister of Transport.

6.30 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) on raising this important matter for debate. He has made an interesting and extremely stimulating speech. There are few more important subjects than the present and future costs of transport. I shall speak briefly and confine myself to the serious effect of increasing fares on


the road traffic situation in the North-West region.
My hon. Friend said that public transport in the inner city areas should be entirely free. That is an extremely engaging proposition. It is perhaps a consummation that is devoutly to be wished. But those who represent the inner areas of the S.E.L.N.E.C. passenger transport authority are now faced with swingeing fare increases. In some cases the proposed increases are as high as 50 per cent.
This is not the worst of the proposals. One proposal is that peak hour travellers on public transport should be subject to a surcharge. There used to be concessionary fares for workers travelling at peak periods. What is now proposed is the very reverse. If there is to be a surcharge on workers travelling at peak periods, this must increase the drift from public to private transport.
I think that that proposal is neither reasonable nor sensible. It is not sensible because it will make the road traffic situation, particularly in Manchester and Salford, much worse than it is now at peak hours. It is not reasonable because most of the people who travel at peak hours do so in considerable discomfort.
Many of my constituents have said that the P.T.A.'s proposal amounts to fining people for travelling at peak hours. Many have no choice but to travel to and from work at peak hours, and they are now faced with a proposal that they should pay a surcharge. This must result in increased private transport on the roads at peak hours. In turn, that must mean that the operating costs of public transport in Manchester and Salford will be increased, and that is likely to mean a further drift to private transport. I am emphasising that the proposal to surcharge people for travelling at peak hours will place the passenger transport authority and everyone who relies upon it for public transport in a vicious circle.
I appreciate that the Minister cannot tonight speak about fares charged or likely to be charged by P.T.A.s. He has, however, with his right hon. Friend, responsibility for road traffic in Manchester and Salford. With his right hon. Friend he has done a great deal to improve the situation, but it will be infinitely worse in future if we fine people

for travelling at peak times. If we do, we shall exacerbate a very difficult road traffic situation in South-East Lancashire and North-East Cheshire.
I hope that my hon. Friend will take careful note of what I have said. I hope, equally, that those responsible for making policy decisions will listen to the protests that have been made by my hon. Friends and that they will think again

6.35 p.m.

Mr. Richard Crawshaw: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) for raising this problem and on the manner in which he presented it. As in so many subjects, he showed a great insight into the problem. I do not wish to detain the House long, because many hon. Members wish to speak on other subjects.
I should also like to pay tribute to the Government for the work that they have done on the motorway system. But there could also be criticism, because I do not believe that we are advancing fast enough with this development. Every penny that we spend on roads ultimately produces pounds for our economy. I know that we must look at the problem overall, but I think that this is one expenditure where we get good value for money.
I am critical of the lack of concern being shown to developments on Merseyside. I cannot, with the best good will in the world towards the Government, understand why, in 1970, Liverpool, which is our first port for exports, should be 18 miles from the nearest motorway. This strikes me as ridiculous. Although I have raised this problem over many years, we do not seem to have made any considerable headway.
It may be because so many burdens are thrown on local authorities in road development, a purely local matter, that we have not advanced further. But I doubt it, because I know that people in the Liverpool area have been urging the linking up of the M62 with the rest of the motorway system. I cannot understand how the first port in this country for exports can be expected to survive when we have a dual carriageway, known as the East Lancashire Road, disgorging into an inadequate system within the city, thereby creating a bottleneck at the end of it.
We are building one tunnel and are about to start on another under the Mersey. The first stage of the inner motorway has been completed; the second stage is about to begin. But where and when is the joining up to take place? What is the purpose of new tunnels and inner motorways if there is no outlet from the city of Liverpool? I know from personnal experience that over the last four to six years journey times within the Liverpool area have doubled. I cannot understand why the matter has been left to such a late stage. This is a criticism about Liverpool which the Government must answer.
We have the East Lancashire road. I do not know whether this was intended to be a substitute. For three years work has proceeded converting it into a dual carriageway, causing continual holdups and inconvenience for anybcdy travelling from Liverpool to Manchester. When I have travelled on motorways in other parts of the country, particularly in the South-East, I have wondered what has prompted the building of motorways along which one can go for mile after mile hardly passing any cars. Three or four years ago the Ministry said that the East Lancashire road, the main road to Liverpool, was carrying a heavier load than many motorways. Yet nothing seems to have been done to speed up the M62 connecting Liverpool.
Merseyside, with its important port, ought to be considered as a special problem. It does not just depend whether Liverpool requires development there; the whole country depends on what developments take place on Merseyside. Therefore, I do not believe that the initiative should come from Merseyside. This is a matter into which the Government should be looking.
Touching on this problem we have the inner loop, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington referred. For many years it has been suggested that the stations in Liverpool should be joined in a loop system, but I do not know why we should stop there. A number of years ago, when I was a member of the city council, I raised the problem of underground systems going out of Liverpool to join up such areas as Kirkby and Skelmersdale. Every day we are faced with the problem of people

who live up to eight miles away travelling into and out of the city. We have a completely inadequate transport system to deal with them, and, as my hon. Friend said, this breeds absenteeism, and so on, in industry. It is a vital problem which must be looked into.
While I am dealing with the problems of Merseyside, perhaps I might say how much I regret the inability to provide assistance to keep Liverpool Airport going. The test of an airport is not just whether it is making an actual profit on its turnover, but whether its presence is responsible for the economic development of the outlying areas. I think that the advantages to be gained from spending money on Liverpool Airport far outweigh anything that we may lose, because of the development which it brings to Britain. It enables people to fly to that area to see to their business.
It seems to be the case that under all Governments, irrespective of their complexion, local authorities are left with the burden of carrying on local authority airports until such time as it suits the Government to come in and use them. This burden is unfairly thrown on the citizens of many cities throughout the Kingdom, and particularly Merseyside. I hope that in considering Merseyside and the development areas my hon. Friend will discuss with his right hon. Friend whether it is possible to ensure that an efficent airport system—

Mr. Tilney: I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the importance of Liverpool, but this is a burden on Liverpool and not on Merseyside as a whole.

Mr. Crawshaw: As the hon. Gentleman says, it is not a burden on Merseyside as an area, but on the City of Liverpool. We are faced with the choice of putting an added burden on the rates, or scrubbing the whole thing and using the area for industrial development or the provision of houses. If Liverpool Airport does go. I believe that this will ultimately affect the business efficiency of the whole of the Merseyside area.

6.42 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I want briefly to raise a problem relating to local passenger transport services. The St. Helens passenger transport undertaking is faced with a deficiency of 13·6 per cent.


drivers, and 9·2 per cent. conductors. There are thousands of pounds worth of capital equipment lying idle in the corporation'3 transport garages because of a shortage of staff, and the management is now faced with the problem of introducing new regulations affecting working hours under the 1968 Transport Act.
At the moment, we have a greatly reduced service, and this has a tremendous effect on the travelling public at peak hours. As services have had to be cut because of a serious shortage of manpower, I ask the Minister to meet the municipal transport association to discuss the difficulties. The problems which I am raising have been affecting my constituents for the last five or six years, and they have grown steadily worse because of the shift work which scheduled bus services mean to workers in industry. Many of them have left to take up day work, and those of us who know what shift work means understand and appreciate why men and women leave industry.
I ask my hon. Friend to say tonight whether he or his right hon. Friend will agree to meet the municipal passenger transport association with a view to coming to an agreement by which the best economic use can be made of the staff. It will be extremely helpful if my hon. Friend will agree to my proposal.

6.44 p.m.

Mir. Michael Heseltine: This has been an extremely interesting debate, and I should like to add to the words which have been used by hon. Members in referring to the interesting speech of the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks). It was an interesting discourse about the transportation problems of the North-West, in the very finest style of intellectual presentation of a difficult and complicated problem.
If I quarrel with the hon. Gentleman, and perhaps it will come as no surprise to him to hear that I do, it is because it was the sort of speech that one hears so often from hon. Gentlemen opposite. It was extremely good and competent in dealing with the individual and theoretical justification for what needs to be done, but it was slightly divorced from the realities which were so graphically dealt with by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw). It was the epitome

of my criticism of the Government's transport policy, that there is no area better than the North-West to contrast the difference between the theory and the promise, on the one hand, and the hard performance, on the other.
I should like to consider in some detail the four specific areas which we have heard discussed by hon. Members on both sides of the House. First, in connection with the urban transport problem, we have heard many references to the S.E.L.N.E.C. passenger transport authority which is the subject of a public inquiry in Manchester tomorrow. We have heard references to the ports of Manchester and Liverpool. We have heard references to the Ribble and Crossville bus companies, which now form part of the National Bus Company. We have heard references to roads, and to the problems of planning, building, and getting them through the normal acquisition procedures in each of the four main areas.
If one analyses the Government's contribution to the way in which the plans which we have discussed in this House over the last four years are working out in practice, one understands why, for the people of the North-West, as for people in the rest of the country, the deal has been an extremely bad one.
Let me consider, first, the problem of the passenger transport authorities. We heard what I thought was a rather quaint and delightful suggestion that public passenger transport should be free. Perhaps I should not have interrupted the hon. Gentleman to question what he meant by free. What he means by free is that it should be paid for, not at the time when people get on or off the buses, but when they pay their fuel duty in buying petrol, or buy a packet of cigarettes, or a pint of beer in the pub at night, so that they do not know what they are paying for the public passenger transport in their cities. They will be paying, of that one can be sure. There is no alternative to somebody paying, but in some way or other the situation is seen by the hon. Member for Bebington and many of his hon. Friends to be better if people do not know they are paying when they use the service. This is supposed to make them able to make better judgments about the transport services which they demand.

Mr. Brooks: I accept the hon. Gentleman's argument, but he is inadvertently misrepresenting my point. I am not seeking to disguise the fact that they are obtaining a service at a cost. What I am trying to argue is that if costs inexorably go on rising at the point of consumption in city areas we shall drive people away from the public transport system and it will grind to a standstill. How does the hon. Gentleman see that problem?

Mr. Heseltine: I take the hon. Gentleman's explanation, and I shall deal with it later, but costs rise for the people whom he is seeking to protect. They rise because they have to pay more for tobacco, fuel, a pint of beer, or whatever it may be. But they do not know why they are paying more, and that is the dilemma in which the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues find themselves.
It is interesting to consider, in the broadest terms, the substance of the inquiry in Manchester tomorrow. We heard a great deal in 1967 and in 1968 of the advantages of the Government changing the operating structure of the passenger transport operations in Manchester so as to bring them under one large operating unit.
My hon. Friend and I went to great lengths to point out that this would divert the managerial expertise available in Manchester away from the problems of planning and traffic management and getting the framework right into the problems of reorganising a massive and top-heavy bus structure.
We were laughed at. We heard the right hon. Lady the First Secretary of State say to the Labour Party conference on 2nd October, 1967:
You know, the Tories tried to run a scare that fares would go up as a result of creating these passenger transport authorities.
The right hon. Lady said a good deal else besides, and I have no doubt that the delegates were on their feet in ecstasy, applauding her condemnation of the "wicked" Tories.
We heard the same thing in the White Paper in July 1966, which said:
In many of these areas the efficiency of bus operations is hampered by the small size of the undertakings"—
the undertakings which were to move into the massive passenger transport authority. So it went on. The quotations are freely

available for anyone who wishes to see them.
I have taken the figures for the last year, up to 31st March, 1969, of the trading results of the 11 undertakings in the S.E.L.N.E.C. passenger transport authority. It will come as an interesting revelation to nobody that on a turnover of £18 million those 11 undertakings until March of last year showed a profit of £750 before depreciation and after depreciation a loss of £160,000. The 11 undertakings were then rationalised in order to produce the benefits of which we have heard so much into the S.E.L.N.E.C. authority.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that these are in the North-West Region.

Mr. Heseltine: It is Manchester, Mr. Speaker, one of the passenger transport authorities in the North-West Region.
These 11 authorities were brought together and the loss of £158,000 is now running at a budgeted £2½ million only a matter of nine months later. That is the subject of tomorrow's inquiry. The Government forced the people of Manchester to accept the passenger transport authority quite against the wishes of all the local authorities in the area and the advice of my hon. Friends and myself.
We advised the Government that it would lead to that sort of problem and that losses would escalate and get out of hand. So they have. The total resources of those people who should now be trying to improve the infrastructure and plan for tomorrow are hypnotised at a £21 million projected loss.

Mr. Alfred Morris: It is not my right hon. Friend the First Secretary who is proposing these fare increases and the lunacy of the surcharge at peak travelling times, and it is not necessarily the fault of any particular concept. The hon. Gentleman should look among his own friends in Manchester and Salford to find where these ideas come from.

Mr. Heseltine: I appreciate the attempt by the Labour Party to put on the backs of the local Tories who control the areas responsibility for the position which has now developed.
The fact is that the local Conservatives in the S.E.L.N.E.C. region fought the concept of a passenger transport authority all


down the line. In the end, they had no choice but to accept it because the Government made them do so. As a result, the Cony ervatives had no choice but to administer what the Government have forced upon them.
My only point is that the argument of those who knew best in the undertakings, of the politicians with responsibility locally and of all those in the House who take transport more seriously, all warned the Government that, if they imposed this it was only a matter of time before these were the inevitable consequences.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): Is the hon. Gentleman really suggesting that the £21 million to which he referred in the Manchester P.T.A. area is the direct result of the changeover of management? Let him face up to the fact that the P.T.A. is a collection of local Conservative members of councils in the area, broadly speaking, and the other people were, in the main, administering the transport system before.

Mr. Heseltine: The Conservatives were administering the 11 authorities, and then the Government came along to reorganise them—to achieve massive efficiencies, they said—and the immediate result is a loss of £2½ million.
This is not only because the undertaking has been rationalised, not only because it is now bigger. There has been a wage increase, and there has been a change in the depreciation position, and so on, but the fact is that we were promised benefits from the reorganisation and there have been none. Second, the attention of those who should be trying to improve the infrastructure of transport has been hypnotised by the massive deficit.
My second point concerns ports. A report has come out today published by the National Ports Council which indicates the way in which the European countries—and the situation is similar in other countries outside Europe—build up and encourage the growth of ports. They have been successful at doing it. One of the things they do is to make money available.
The Government are to take away from the Manchester Ship Canal and Mersey Docks and Harbour Board the ownership

of their port and the right to have private employers, Liverpool and Manchester based, and centralise them all on London. This is the second area in which the infrastructure should be improved, and the local people should be allowed to get on with it. Instead, the Government are to spend £76 million on centralising it all into one great operating unit. That is the wrong thing to do and it will cost the people of the North-West a lot of time and patience. It will also cost them and the British taxpayer a great deal of money, as the losses inevitably come.
My third point concerns the National Bus Company. This cost the taxpayer £47 million about three years ago to acquire the privately-owned bus shares in British Electric Traction to nationalise them and put them into the National Bus Company. This was £47 million added to this £76 million in the ports.
The immediate effect is that it comes under the political control of the Minister and companies like Ribble and Crossville, which have served the local area in the North-West extremely well, now find themselves in a totally impossible financial position. They have been given a directive which one can only describe as totally impractical and financially reckless. It will face the National Bus Company within the foreseeable future with bankruptcy in exactly the same way as other nationalised transport industry has been placed.
The only way in which the managements of Ribble and Crossville can deal with this kind of situation is to face up to their own budgets, confronted as they are with a 30 per cent. wage claim coming along and with the cost of driver hours, which have been doubled, as the Ministry know.
There will be various consequences. First, they will find that Ribble and Crossville will be cutting back on marginal services so as to contribute more to the central funds of the National Bus Company. There will be fare increases partly to contribute more and partly to meet the subsidies through British Railways which have now been put on the back of the National Bus Company. This is the next area which people will be asked to subsidise, and a fascinating piece of political intrigue within the Ministry it is.
The people of the North-West in the Ribble and Crossville area, those undertakings having been acquired by the taxpayer at a price of £47 million, are now having to subsidise the losses on the London services of the country buses. That was the decision of the Ministry of Transport, transferring from the London Transport Executive losses of £400,000—or, perhaps, £600,000 at the current rate—into the funds of the National Bus Company, which is where the subsidy will now be hidden, because it will come out of the revenue which at the moment the Government are earning on the Crossville and Ribble.
That is the sort of cross-subsidisation that goes on. It is a cowardly and contemptible decision of the Ministry taken purely for political reasons because there is a General Election in the offing. It is an example of the way in which politicians mesmerised by the need to earn votes are prepared to desert any sort of theoretical arguments about how to run the transport industry properly. The North-West will suffer as a consequence.
Fourth, the question of roads. The hon. Member for Toxteth left with us an extremely interesting question: why should Liverpool be 18 miles away from a motorway? The Parliamentary Secretary will tell us that there is no money and that everyone has to accept the priorities. At the present level of expenditure, there is no money, but let the people of Manchester, Liverpool and the North-West understand clearly what the position is. The £47 million which went to the shareholders of British Electric Traction could have done all they needed to link Liverpool by 18 miles of motorway. Let them understand that the £76 million which we could save at once by scrapping the Ports Bill would give them a motorway most of the way to London.
In fact, it is already there, but other parts of the country could be linked as well. But the Government would rather deprive the owners of the Manchester Ship Canal of their shares, they would rather wrap up the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and eliminate the private sector at a cost of £76 million, than build the roads which people need. That is their sense of priority, and that is why

they will be thrashed in the coming election.
The other great criticism on the question of roads is directed at the Government's failure to put themselves into such a position as will enable them to proceed with the road programme after 1972. It will not be this Government but a Government of my party who will carry the programme on then, but the difficulty will be that plans will not be available, applications and acquisitions will not have gone forward, and planning procedures will not have been complied with, so that there will not have been built up a sufficiently large reservoir of road plans to keep the programme going.
The present Government inherited a road programme which was to complete 1,000 miles of motorway by 1972, and of that 750 miles were already through the planning procedures by 1964. This Government have kept the programme up, achieving the targets which the Conservatives established, and which they would have achieved, too, but only 350 miles are in the pipeline for after 1972. How long will that last? It takes seven years from the moment of deciding on a road to get it actually under way. The culpability of the Government in not publishing the White Paper on roads—it was promised for 1969, but there is still no sign of it now in 1970—will weigh heavily with all those in the North-West who ask themselves what the future developing road building programme will be in their area.
I come now to the observations of the hon. Member for Bebington about public transport. Public passenger transport has an immense part to play, and it should be encouraged. I question whether it has been encouraged by this Government. but encouraged it ought to be, for it will certainly satisfy some demands. But let us have no illusions about why people do not go by bus. They go by car and not by bus because in many ways it is preferable. In an economy in which the number of cars will double by the end of 1980 and treble by the year 2010, we must face the implications for the bus.
Hon. Members opposite would like to say that people must go by bus, not by car. The other approach is to heed Buchanan. Buchanan spells out the implications for our society. We should take the hint of what the electors want


us to do, which is to build roads, to find ways to cater for public demand in the cities, at the same time trying to protect the environment, which will be destroyed if we do not pour money into the cities on the building of roads, the provision of off-street parking, the maintenance of traffic flow, and all the other crucial requirements. These are the priorities demanded by anyone who understands logic and the evolution of transport.

Mr. Brooks: This is an important point. Is the hon. Gentleman saying that the experience in the cities of the United Stales, where there has been a vast expenditure on roads in an attempt to meet the constant growth of traffic, is one from which we can draw salutary lessons? I did not say that I am opposed to road building. What I question is whether in certain circumstances in the city areas it is really the best solution to aim for.

Mr. Heseltine: I take the point. The hon. Gentleman is right to suggest that the parallels from North America are not all happy, but I believe nevertheless that they offer lessons which we should learn. They have failed principally, I think, in not malting clear to the motorist that, if he wants freedom, there will have to be mechanisms by which he pays for it. The most efficient way of dealing with the question at the moment is by parking costs, though I have no doubt that other methods will come.
The present attitude of saying to the motorists that they shall all go by bus is no better than spitting at the wind. They will not go by bus, because the buses do not go where they want to go, because they have to wait in queues, and so on. Until the day of the computer-controlled mini-bus—it is on the drawing board, and I have seen a working prototype in America—we must deal with the problem as it exists, and we must help people to live with the motor car before it swamps us.
Those are the priorities. Let us concentrate resources on planning and developing the infrastructure and on allowing, within that framework, the greatest degree of local autonomy and freedom we possibly can, encouraging various developments for the private car through off-street garaging and so on, and at the same time making proper provision for public transport. Let us

not spend public money in trying to acquire ownership. The priorities demand expenditure on the infrastructure, which is far more important; it will create a far more effective growth factor in these outlying regions than any other apparently simple or quick expedient that one can imagine.
Once one sets up transport systems controlled by the State, one finds financial directives given which are dishonest and politically motivated, and these bring their inevitable penalty in bankruptcy. That is my view. I have given if often in the past, and I do not expect it to be accepted tonight any more than it has been hitherto.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that this is the second of 25 debates which are to take place during the night. I have appealed for reasonably brief speeches.

7.7 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I join other hon. Members in paying tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bebington (Mr. Brooks) for raising this important subject and for his excellent discourse in so doing.
I take, first, the Merseyside Area Land Use and Transportation Study. I can best sum up the value of the study by quoting from paragraph 49 of the report itself:
The recommended Land Use and Transportation Policy Plan provides a solid foundation for the development of Merseyside over the coming years. It offers people a wide choice of housing locations, and employers a wide range of new sites for commercial and industrial development. The proposed transportation system will enable people to choose how they wish to travel throughout the day; though because of competing claims on the limited resources available for redevelopment it may be another ten years before this benefit is fully felt. Finally, but of paramount importance to proposals reaching twenty-five years into the future, the transportation system is suited to both the higher and lower rates of growth in population and can be readily adapted to meet the more foreseeable variations in the development of land uses".
The detailed transportation analysis was concentrated on two systems: (a) a highway and public transport system catering for what is described as the "choice" use of cars; (b) a system providing for uncongested movement of traffic during off-peak periods, with a


public transport system capable of catering for additional work journeys in the peak hours resulting from the necessary restraint on car trips, particularly to the centre of Liverpool.
Both the "choice" and the "restrained" systems have functional standards—that is, common criteria, the most important of which are: (a) that parking charges will be sufficient to meet the cost of providing the spaces; (b) that bus and rail services will be integrated, with through booking facilities, and that break-even fares will be charged; (c) that sufficient highways will be provided to cater for the uncongested movement of traffic.
The cost of the "choice" system —is estimated at £311 million, and the cost of the "restrained" system at £281 million, in each case excluding the cost of parking provision, that is, a difference of £30 million. These figures are in excess of what the Ministry provided for as the probable availability of funds up to 1991, which was £250 million. This is in no sense a commitment, but was given to ensure a realistic financial discipline for the study. It is evident that the cost of the restrained system is at the very limit of the Ministry's range, and it cannot be assumed that the extra cost of the choice system could be met by the projection year of 1991.
The essential feature of both systems is an integrated public transport system, whereby rail and bus services fulfil the roles which each can do best, and complement each other, with provision for car-rail interchanges, bus feeder services and so on.
The difference between the systems lies on the roads side. In the restrained system, travel by road in the outer areas would be unrestricted, but there would have to be some restrictions on car use in the city centre. In the choice system, which calls for extra road investment, there would be no brakes on the journey to work, even into the city centre. On the other hand, public transport services would be run on a break-even basis, and parking charges would be geared to the level of meeting the cost of providing for the parking space. While both systems would require basically the same network of new construction, the choice system would allow 39 per cent. of work

journeys to the city centre to be made by car; the restraint system would allow only 17 per cent.
Whether Merseyside should go for the one system or the other is primarily a matter for Merseyside itself. The steering committee has asked its member local authorities and other bodies for comments on the report. Implementation is a matter for individual authorities—notably the passenger transport executive, B.R.B. and the highway authorities, which will, of course, want to take into account the money which the Ministry declares from time to time can be expected for investment.
The next point which my hon. Friend mentioned is the future plans for the mix between public and private transport. Over the 20 years before us, we can see one characteristic common to both systems—that from now to the late 'seventies—there will certainly be some need for restraint of private car travel, while, of course, a massive investment programme is in its first stages of development. But there is this advantage, that the options are kept open for as long as possible. Room will be provided for experimenting with the public transport system and for refining the schemes according to how the governing factors develop—population movement, industrial change, the pace of general growth, and so on.
Only after that—say seven to 10 years hence—will policy decisions on the remaining stages of the programme be required. A definite choice between restrained and unrestrained car use is not, in the Ministry's view, one which need or should be made now. The longer term emphasis will be governed by actual fund availability and the extent to which the underlying planning assumptions are realised in practice. There will be a continuing need for a monitoring organisation which will refine and carry forward the implications of the study as time goes on.
A number of hon. Members from Merseyside have mentioned the Liverpool Loop and railway electrification. The main recommendations in the rail report are detailed on page 123 of the Merseyside Area Land Use and Transportation Study. They are the Burrowing Junction at Hamilton Square, authorised by Parliament in 1968 at a cost of £750,000, the


Terminal Loop, also authorised in 1968, at a cost of about £5 million, and the Exchange-Central link, to cost about £3 million.
These are modern types of urban rail development, aimed at maximum scope for travel to key points in the city centre, and at through journeys and the convenience of major interchange. In the report, the economic justification shows these developments to be a more profitable investment in terms of the cost-benefit ratio than the alternative scheme, known as the Horseshoe. Refined economic checks on the case made in the Report for the former have borne out this preference.
The cost of the whole rail package which it embraces is about £12 million, including station improvements and the electrification of the Hooton and Garston lines, at £500,000 each, as compared with over £16 million for the Horseshoe package. The completion year for the last major element in the earlier package I mentioned, the Exchange-Central Link, is 1975 and the Hooton and Garston electrification would take place towards the end of the construction period up to that date. Together with this go minor supporting schemes costing about £1 million in all—miscellaneous station facelifts, park-and-ride interchanges and so on. This also is a job for the Passenger Transport Executive to work out in detail.
My Ministry's attitude to these problems is that the Terminal Loop and associated works promise to create a long-lasting rail mesh for local Merseyside travel, especially the journey to work, which, integrated with a rational bus system, should ensure good public passenger transport on Merseyside for the rest of the century. Approved major rail projects will be considered for infrastructure grants under Section 56 of the 1968 Transport Act, at a rate of up to 75 per cent., and minor projects, that is, notably, the car-rail interchanges, will rank at 50 per cent.
Several hon. Members have mentioned Speke Airport, which is a matter for the President of the Board of Trade, and the Dee Estuary barrage, which is a question for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.
My hon. Friend the Member for Bebington posed a number of questions to

which he said that he did not expect answers this evening, but which he thought should be posed. There were some good questions among them. He asked whether it was sensible to spend more money on new roads for commuters to use. Would it not be more sensible, he wondered, to encourage them to use public transport. I could not agree more, but we must underline the word "encourage". They are, after all, free agents, and the one thing that we cannot do is dictate to people how they shall get to work.
My hon. Friend said that, if we build more roads, we encourage more vehicles. This is an arguable point, but, clearly, there comes a time when we are faced with the prospect that, if we do not, in certain urban areas, build bigger and better roads, everything will grind to a halt. This is a chicken and egg situation. My hon. Friend mentioned parking, asking where it would be, how much should be charged and how much would be a subsidy from the local authority. This, also, is an issue for Merseyside local authorities.
I am grateful for my hon. Friend's comments about the success of the British Railways Board's Inter-City service. I forget how he described it, but it was a fine description of what I believe every hon. Member would conceive to be a very fine service.
The need for an efficient, reliable and comfortable passenger transport system has been the theme underlying the debate. We will certainly not encourage commuters to leave their cars at home and travel by public transport if, for example, buses are old-fashioned with open platforms and inefficient heating.
The hon. Member for North Fylde (Mr. Clegg) spoke at length about the motorway link from Preston to the Fylde coast; what is commonly described as the Preston northern bypass. I assure him that his remarks will be studied by my Department. He will not expect me to give a detailed reply tonight, and I will write to him on the subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Dan Jones) made three important points. First, he referred to the Calder Valley road, and, secondly, to the Bury bypass. These are both local projects near and dear to his heart. While


he will not expect me to comment in detail on them tonight, I promise to write to him, having looked into the matter with up-to-date information.
The Calder Valley road project has been widely discussed for some time. I do not have knowledge of the Bury bypass project, but I will look into the matter and let my hon. Friend know precisely whether there are any plans and, if there are, whether they are in or out of the programme.
My hon. Friend dealt, thirdly, with the need for efficient railway services from North-East Lancashire to the North-East coast ports pending our possible entry into the Common Market. He suggested that a modern signalling system should be installed. I do not know how far we have got with this matter and whether there is a modern signalling system on this stretch of track. This aspect really comes within the province of my colleague, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Gravesend (Mr. Murray), who will, no doubt. contact my hon. Friend on this subject.
My hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Alfred Morris) spoke of the fares issue in the Manchester area. He will appreciate that this is a matter for the P.T.E. and the P.T.A. The traffic commissioners will be hearing this issue and, in view of the appellate position of my right hon. Friend in this matter, it would be unwise of me to comment on the subject further.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw) gave us some credit for having made an impact on the motorway programme, and I was grateful for his remarks. As for Liverpool being 18 miles from the nearest motorway, hon. Members representing Liverpool constituencies are bound to say that it seems a paradox that the greatest exporting port of the nation should be so far away from a motorway development. All that I can pray in aid on this subject is that it is a question of priority from a nationwide point of view. Over and above, of course, it is a question how we should develop the motorway network.
The hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Michael Heseltine) grins at that remark, but he knows that in that part of the country the motorway network is pro-

ceeding extremely well. Indeed, the M62 is slightly ahead of schedule.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: The hon. Gentleman is no doubt aware that his Department is building roads under the Conservative's plan for the first 1,000 miles of motorways. However, it will be the people of the North-West who will have to drive along priorities rather than along roads after 1972.

Mr. Brown: I will be dealing with the hon. Gentleman's speech. The points that he made were less important than those made by my hon. Friends, whose comments I am dealing with first.
My hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs) spoke of the shortage of staff in the St. Helens transport undertaking. I am sure that every hon. Member who has a transport undertaking in his constituency could make the same case. This matter concerns us all—I wish that it were confined to the North-West —because it is a widespread problem which cannot be solved overnight. It is particularly applicable in the heavily populated and sometimes more prosperous areas.
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens that my Department is always ready to discuss this problem with anybody who can suggest ways of alleviating it. Indeed, we would be delighted to hear suggestions for solving staff shortages of this kind. We are always ready to discuss matters of this nature with the Municipal Passenger Transport Association and we have already discussed issues of this type with the Association.
The hon. Member for Tavistock adopted, to say the least, an attitude of base hypocrisy when he talked in terms of the loss in the Manchester P.T.A. area rising to £½1 million after nine months. He knows well enough that the 11 undertakings in the area were under the management and control of the former councils there until 1st November of last year. The executive has, therefore, had less than three months in which to carry out the rationalisation programme—to achieve the necessary economies, and so on—which means that for the hon. Gentleman to suggest that there has been an increase in the loss to £½1, million as a result of the Transport Act, 1968, is blatant hypocrisy.

Mr. Michael Heseltine: Mr. Michael Heseltine rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that interventions prolong speeches. We have still 23 debates ahead.

Mr. Heseltine: I did not say that that had occurred as a result of that Act, but that part of it could be attributed to it. I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman would explain the projected flow of advantage that we can expect from this rationalisation in the forthcoming year.

Mr. Brown: Hon. Members will put their own interpretation on the hon. Gentleman's remarks.

Mr. Heseltine: Answer my question.

Mr. Brown: I suggest that what he said was what I said he said.
The hon. Member for Tavistock went on, still tongue in cheek, to speak of the Transport (London) Act, which transferred deficits from the London country services to the N.B.C. and, he said, to the people of the North-West; in other words, that the people of Merseyside and Manchester would have to pay for the losses made in London. That is simply not true.

Mr. Heseltine: It is.

Mr. Brown: If the hon. Gentleman will contain himself and listen, I will explain.
The financial target of the N.B.C. was agreed with the N.B.C. It is broadly comparable with the former profits of the companies calculated collectively. In other words, the target was agreed after taking into account all the losses of the London country bus services. The target was less because of these losses and this sum is not being carried on the backs of the other companies.
I remind the hon. Gentleman that prior to the Transport (London) Act the taxpayers of the nation generally had for many years carried the losses of London Transport. This Act places the responsibility for the transport services of London on the shoulders of the people who live in the area, where it should have been for generations.

Mr. Heseltine: May I ask one question?

Mr. Brown: I think that in fairness I should not give way again. I have been generous in giving way to interventions.
The Transport Act, 1968, provided for substantial assistance to companies in meeting the cost of bus operations. There is also the fuel duty rebate. Bus operators pay only 2s. per gallon duty against 2s. 9d. paid in 1964, when hon. Members opposite were in power. In spite of the fact that they holler so much about the increases in fuel duties, it is worth quoting those figures. There is the grant of 25 per cent. paid on new buses which companies buy provided that they conform to standard specifications. Infrastructure grants will also be available to assist in building bus stations.
Because of your request that we should be brief, Mr. Speaker, I refrain from going into many other policy points which the Government have introduced in the Transport Act and other Measures which are an attempt to salvage public passenger transport for the future.

OVERSEAS PENSIONERS

Mr. Speaker: We come now to the third debate, on overseas pensioners. I remind the House that there are 22 debates ahead of this one and that reasonably brief speeches will help. Will any hon. Member in the House who wishes to speak on this topic please let the Chair know?

7.32 p.m.

Mr. Richard Sharpies: I am grateful for the opportunity of raising the question of hardship caused to certain overseas pensioners. Before turning to the generalities of the problem, I wish to turn to a particular case which I have raised before in this House and which I make no excuse whatever for raising again. It is a case about which I feel more strongly than about any other case which has come to my notice since I have been a Member of Parliament.
I refer to the case of Mr. Salole, which I originally raised in an Adjournment debate on 26th November, 1968. Mr. Salole is a Somali by origin. He served 25 years in the Aden Police. He was injured and lost the sight of one of his eyes in the course of duty in the riots in 1947. He was awarded the Queen's Medal for Meritorious Service. He retired from the Aden Police in 1963 when he held the rank of senior superintendent of police, the highest rank, I


think, held by anyone not of United Kingdom origin.
When he retired Mr. Salole was awarded a pension of £807 a year, which included the compensation he received for the loss of his eye. I think it fair to say that Mr. Salole devoted the whole of his working life to the service of the British Crown. The fact that he did so and the capacity in which he served in the Aden Police meant that it was quite impossible for him after his retirement to remain in what is now South Yemen. Had he done so, I am assured by those who know him, and who know the country and have served in senior capacities in the British Colonial Service, that he would not have been alive today. He would have been one of the main targets for the terrorist organisation both before and after independence.
What is the position of Mr. Salole today? What is the reward he receives for his record of 25 years' service to the British Crown and the heavy responsibilities which he bore in a most difficult period in the history of Aden? For almost two years now Mr. Salole, living in my constituency, has received not one penny of pension. He does not even receive the form of loan or ex gratia payment which is made to practically every one of his colleagues who served with him with equal rank who were of United Kingdom origin.
A short time ago I had a letter from Mr. Salole in which he said that he works now as a storeman in a warehouse. This is the former Chief Superintendent of Police in Aden. He says:
I am in my 62nd year"—
he is now in his 63rd year—
and feel the strain of my present employment. Besides my single eye, which is considerably losing strength, and being affected by my diabetes, I have just developed hernia. The signs are that, though I have the spirit, my physical frame is giving way and I do not think that it will he long before t will have to succumb to my growing weakness and retire permanently but without the pension that I had so much depended upon. It has certainly been the most unkindest cut of all' 
This was the case which I raised in the Adjournment debate on 26th November, 1968. I make no personal criticism of the former Parliamentary Secretary. I

warned him, of course, that I was to raise this question this evening. I appreciate the difficult task a Parliamentary Secretary has in answering a debate of this kind. He made three points. He said that the first of the principles on which it is decided whether or not that the British Government accept responsibility for pensions of this kind,
is that overseas civil servants, whether expatriate or local, were employed by the overseas Governments concerned and not by Her Majesty's Government. Their pension right, derive from legislation passed by those Governments, and their pensions are awarded and paid by those Governments
There is very little to quarrel with in that as the position stands at present.
The hon. Gentleman went on to talk about the particular responsibility of the South Yemen Government. Here I think there is a very real difference between the position of pensioners like Mr. Salole and those who retired from service in other areas of the former British Colonial Empire. The former Parliamentary Secretary said:
It is true that, in the circumstances leading up to the independence of Southern Yemen. our attempts to negotiate a public officers' agreement with the successor Government were unsuccessful. The fact that there was that kind of difficulty does not relieve the Southern Yemen Government of their responsibilities in accordance with the principle that I have just described"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 26th November, 1968; Vol. 774, c. 466–67.]
This is of small comfort to people like Mr. Salole. Is it ever expected that the Government of the South Yemen. having got out of their country someone who held a position as he did, will ever honour their obligation in this way? Of course they will not. It is quite unrealistic ever to think that they will do so. In the meantime Mr. Salole has to go without any pension at all. So far the former Parliamentary Secretary was probably stating the position as it was, and, although I disagree with it. I have no particular quarrel with the Ministry about that.
The third ground is the question of the status of Mr. Salole and the attempts which were made by the Ministry not only to avoid the responsibility in a general way for the payment of a pension to someone of this kind but also to exclude him from the arrangements which were made by means of ex gratia payments, on the ground that he was of


South Arabian status and therefore that his position was different from that of people who had been recruited for the Aden police back in the early days well before the Second World War.
Here I regret to say that I had a very real quarrel with the Ministry. When I originally took this question up I was not satisfied with the answer I received in the Adjournment debate. I wrote to the former Parliamentary Secretary. He referred me to the regulations setting out the conditions for South Arabian States. He said this in a letter dated 2nd December, 1968:
In the terms of these Regulations, and in the light of the knowledge of his personal and family history, the local Administration"—
I ask the House to mark the words, "the local Administration"—
deemed Mr. Salole—like his brother, Mr. L. C. Salole, a former Chief Registrar of the Aden Supreme Court—to be of South Arabian status for the purpose of the Public Service. We have no power, and in any case see no reason, to question the validity of this ruling
I locked up the regulations and queried that. A considerable correspondence followed. Eventually I received a letter dated 12th December, 1968 from the former Parliamentary Secretary saying this:
Mr. A. F. Salole had retired before the 1964 Regulations came into operation and we
that is the Ministry, not the local Administration—
had therefore to reach a decision on his status.
There is no question, as had been said in the earlier letter and as had been the background to the earlier debate, of the Ministers being bound by a decision which had been taken prior to independence under the 1964 Regulations. The letter continues:
We Here advised that the position of his brother, 11Ir. L. C. Salole, had been determined under the 1964 Regulations and he had been accorded South Arabian status. It seemed to us"—
that is, the Ministry—
that we could not justifiably accord to your constituent a status different to that given to his brother by the local administration
The regulation applied a fair and rigid system for determining a person's status. It did not depend upon the relationship he had with his brother or any other relative. It provided in the

event of dispute for the case to be heard before a tribunal. This does not apply in the case of Mr. Salole, because, on my asking about these rights and how these matters had been determined, the former Parliamentary Secretary said this in a letter dated 19th December, 1968:
We do not know whether the South Arabian Tribunal still exists or whether the 1964 Regulations are still in operation, but it seems unlikely
That is where the case rests.
In a case of this kind surely the Ministry should have tried to bend over backwards to find a reason for giving what is rightfully due to a person who has served Britain in the way Mr. Salole has. Instead—I say this regretfully, because I have much respect for the Ministry in other ways—I have come to the conclusion, from the correspondence I have quoted and from the answer to the Adjournment debate, that the Ministry has bent over backwards in the other direction, trying to find every possible excuse for failing to pay a pension to this most deserving person. This reflects grave discredit on those who have handled this case.
I do not believe that we can any longer go on treating people who have served Britain well overseas and who have given their lives in Britain's service in this way—there are cases other than that of Mr. Salole—as pawns in a game of international chess. The time has come for us to have a fresh look at the whole of this business and see whether a better solution can be found. Mr. Salole's case is one of grave injustice—I choose my words carefully—to a loyal and distinguished servant of the Crown.
I greatly hope that, perhaps with new Ministers, a fresh look will be taken at the ease. If I do not obtain a fair and satisfactory solution to Mr. Salole's case, I shall use every means open to a Member of Parliament to keep the case open and do all I can to secure justice for Mr. Salole.
Mr. Salole's case raises much wider issues. The more one studies the whole question of pensions for the overseas pensioner the more it appears that the whole problem is riddled with anomalies, depending upon whom the pensioner was employed by, what his exact status was, with which Government he did most of his service, and so on.
At the end of last year I referred to a case which had come to my notice, that of Mr. Sharman, former Deputy Commissioner of Shanghai Police. He retired from that distinguished position in 1946 with a pension of £207 a year. Because he was employed by the Shanghai Police and not directly by a colonial administration, he is excluded, as are so many others, from any increases under the Pensions (Increase) Acts. Borderline cases must be accorded the same treatment as that accorded to others who served in the Overseas Civil Service.
There is the whole question of pensioners' widows. Cases I have been looking into—I shall mention no names; they are not constituents of mine—show that even when the overseas Governments are co-operative it often takes up to a year, with correspondence going back and forth. I know that the Ministry does all it can to keep short the period between the death of the pensioner and the date when the Crown Agents are authorised to pay the pension. Let us think of the position of a widow in such a case who has been dependent upon the pension earned by the service of her husband. I do not believe that we can go on in this way.
I appreciate the difficulties, but I believe that the time has come when we should start to negotiate with overseas Governments for our taking over the responsibility for the former civil servants, the majority of whom are living in the United Kingdom. I believe that, if we were to start negotiating on that basis, it would probably, in the majority of cases, be welcomed by the overseas Governments themselves, even if one had to make some adjustment in the level of overseas aid in order to compensate for the additional expenditure which we would be taking on and of which we would he relieving the overseas Governments.
This policy has been followed by the majority of other Governments who had similar colonial responsibilities. The French have done this right from the start, and I believe that it is the right solution. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give serious consideration to this suggestion, but, above all, I hope that I shall receive some kind of favourable reply about the case of Mr. Salole, about which I feel so strongly.

7.51 p.m.

Mr. Frank Hooley: I am indebted to the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) for introducing this topic, which is of great importance. He devoted most of his remarks to a specific case but touched on the general problem. I believe that he is right in saying that unless there is a solution to the general problem of these pensions, the anomalies will persist and become compounded as the years go by.
A former colleague of mine, Mr. Kup, of Fairah Bay College, Sierra Leone, wrote an article in The Guardian in the middle of last year. In reply, I sent a letter to The Guardian expressing general agreement with his views and dislike of the present situation. Rather to my surprise, I received a personal letter from Mr. Walden, Secretary of the Overseas Service Pensioners' Association, who wrote:
I was very interested to read your letter in The Guardian of the 4th August and more than delighted to see your criticism of the attitude of Whitehall to overseas pensioners. This association for the last 7 years has been pressing the British Government to take over our pensions, but so far without success
It would appear, therefore, to be the general feeling, at least among a representative body of these people, that a solution along the lines suggested by the hon. Gentleman would at any rate be acceptable to them. I think that the hon. Gentleman is also right in saying that it would probably be acceptable to the majority of the overseas countries concerned.
It is generally known that this is a peculiar situation. It is unique to Britain. Like the hon. Gentleman, I have never heard of any other erstwhile imperial Power making such strange arrangements for the pensions of its former overseas servants. I can understand the motives which led some Whitehall civil servant to think this scheme up, but I cannot see what principle of equity or common sense was applied to it. Clearly, the arrangement is working in a most unsatisfactory way.
I want to stress the unsatisfactory nature of the arrangement from the point of view of the other countries concerned. I am prepared to take as read the unsatisfactory nature of the situation from the point of view of the pensioners themselves and in the kind of individual case


which the hon. Gentleman cited. I want to quote a comment by the Overseas Development Institute, made as far back as 1964, in its general review of technical assistance. It said:
Whether or not it is right in law, one cannot help wondering whether it is really Just that poor countries should have been asked to pay, as the 'price' of independence, compensation to officials appointed by an alien regime. Britain is, in any case, having to give or lend most of them the money to fulfil this obligation; and the complete assumption of such obligations by the British Government would be a farsighted act of statesmanship leading to a much happier relationship in future
I believe that that is so. I understand that about £90 million has been paid in the from of pensions over the past couple of decades. In 1968, in a reply to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Whitaker)—whom I am happy to see on the Front Bench—the information was given that these pension payments were running then at a level of E181 million a year. Of course, they are not all being paid by all the territories.
India made a commutation arrangement in 1955 by surrendering certain sterling balances. It settled the thing there and then. In the case of Palestine, not even Whitehall had the nerve to ask the Israeli Government to stump up for the pensions of former Palestine police and other civil servants there.
The matter became a public issue, in a sense, when Tanzania in 1967 or 1968 refused point blank to go on with the arrangement, which it regarded as unjust and iniquitous. It said flatly that while it would cheerfully pay pensions to any expatriate servants of Tanzania who had served since 1961 and voluntarily entered the service of independent Tanzania, and was happy to honour all obligations incurred since then, it had no intention of carrying on meeting obligations incurred before that date. It said that it was prepared to pay the price of the cessation of British aid as a result of this decision of policy. Tanzania has stood firm on that position ever since. The situation has contributed to some friction and lack of co-operation between two countries which otherwise could work together very happily and between whom, on other issues, as far as I know, a considerable amount of good will exists.
The other territory quoted by the hon. Gentleman was the Republic of South Yemen, which refused absolutely to entertain this arrangement ab initio. The result was that South Yemen forfeited the golden handshake, so to speak—an independence settlement grant of about £12 million which had been envisaged in the negotiations for the transfer of power on independence when the republic was created. In fact, the republic has suffered genuine and grievous hardship from the failure of Britain to implement the full financial terms of the independence settlement because of the quarrel over the pension issue.
So, in at least four territories—India, Palestine, Tanzania and South Yemen—there have been either unilateral or agreed modifications of the general policy. The Government may say that all countries must be treated alike, but they must admit nevertheless that there are precedents in which one side or the other has been forced to introduce a modification of the original arrangement. I believe that it would be statesmanship to admit that the situation is unsatisfactory, both for the countries concerned and for the pensioners, and to attempt a general revision.
In fact, we have, of course, been meeting a good deal of these payments ourselves through loans to the countries paying the pensions. According to a figure I was given recently, in the five-year period 1963–68 this country provided £42 million in loans so that these countries could pay the pensions. Hon. Members may think this a reasonable arrangement but I regard it as iniquitous that the loans should be called "aid". They are included in the aid budget. We solemnly announce that we are giving so much aid when the sum includes money payable by way of pensions to British citizens, many of whom are living in England. Such loans cannot by any stretch of the English language be regarded as aid to under-developed countries in the normal sense in which the word "aid" is understood. It is a complete misnomer to call these loans "aid", and it is high time that the humbug was dropped and we revised the whole arrangement.
The House learned, rather to its amusement, only a short time ago that one hon. Member is interested in this form


of aid and that the pension which, I am sure, he justly and honourably earned is reckoned by the Government to be aid to the developing country in which he happened to serve many years ago.
I want again to quote from the Overseas Development Institute, this time from its review of British development policy in 1966. It said:
Britain could further ease the financial problems of some Commonwealth developing countries by assuming the full cost of paying the pensions of former British colonial civil servants. Some African countries have to pay as much as 3% or 4% of their annual budget on overseas pensions. This gives rise to considerable resentment on the part of the poor countries. It is not only right, but makes better sense to assume direct and complete responsibility for these costs than to have to meet them indirectly through loans or budgetary assistance. The cost of such concessions would not be small but to a large extent it would be internal' transfer from the Treasury to individual Britons
I ask the Government to accept that it does make better sense to do this, and to get on with it.

8.3 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney: I support strongly what my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharpies) has said and also largely what has been said by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley). I understand the feeling of the Ministry and, in particular, of the Treasury, that, once one opened the door to those who were locally recruited, there might be no end to those who would have to be supported in one way or another. But I think that the situation of those who served the British Crown in Aden, as it was—it is now South Yemen—is completely different from the situation of those who served Her Majesty in other territories of the Commonwealth which have entered into a public officers' agreement, with this country on achieving independence.
The story of what has happened to Mr. Salole may be repeated with several other individuals. Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to enlighten us about that. Let us remember that Mr. Salole is, I understand, in this country only because he was exiled from Aden, which was a thriving place when we controlled it but is rapidly going back to misery and desert.
Mr. Salole is exiled only because he served the British Crown. He is prevented from going back to live in South Yemen. Whether or not we have the power to help, it is time that the Government took that power and helped those who have been loyal servants of this country and have been banished from their homeland because of what they have done for us in the past.

Mr. Sharples: Mr. Salole was not exiled or banished from Aden. He left entirely of his own accord, in good time.

Mr. Tilney: But there must be quite a number of those who saw the writing on the wall and knew what would happen to them if they remained. There is a danger that this may happen in other territories; we have to accept that. For years I have been urging Her Majesty's Government to do something about taking over the basic pensions of those who were regarded as and ultimately became, Her Majesty's overseas civil servants.
The position really is getting worse rather than better. I understand that there have been considerable delays in Nigeria. I know of one civil servant who has had nothing since last June. I agree that he has arranged for his money to be paid in Lagos and not in this country, to get the benefits of the devaluation of the £ sterling. This was his decision before sterling was devalued. There was another case of widows in Ceylon. In one case of which I know, no pension has been paid for three years because of some discrepancies which have since been put right.
In Tanzania—and I am not mentioning those civil servants now residing in South Africa or Rhodesia, because I understand how the Tanzanians feel about that; I am talking about two cases resident here—there has been an error in the income tax calculated on their pensions and suddenly, in one month, all the arrears have been taken off, so that in one case a pensioner is expected to live for a whole month on £2 15s. 9d. Surely this is utterly wrong. I understand that there is a certain amount of inefficiency in the finance Ministries of the developing countries. We know that in our own Inland Revenue there are immense delays.
I accept that with Tanzania when pensions were refused by that Government the British Government came in to pay them but there was a delay, and there is a general fear among members of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service who have retired that in two months' time, or a years' time, suddenly the money on which they have budgeted and on which they depend, will be taken away and will not be placed to their credit in a bank.
There is another danger, which is that every year in the budgets of developing countries the question of pension payments comes up. This makes the payments to expatriates very unpopular. It might come up in debates for several days running and appear in the newspapers of the developing countries.
This cannot be a good thing because it is not understood. I cannot see why Great Britain, in common with all ex-Imperial Powers, cannot take over the pension, and if necessary cut aid. The accounting of aid is always very difficult. I accept the argument of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley), but I also take note that we do not take into account any of the aid that we give indirectly on the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. The whole question of the accounting of aid needs to be examined carefully.
I know that the Minister will say that it is difficult because there are bilateral treaties with all the different Commonwealth countries and after all, the rich can pay. Bermuda, the Bahamas, Hong Kong, those colonies can pay with the greatest ease, as can Malaysia or Singapore. As they are bilateral treaties, I cannot see why this process cannot be done gradually, taking some of the African and possibly Asian countries one at a time, changing the public servants agreement that we have with them.
The principle was given away when we accepted responsibility for the pensions of the Indian civil servants, for Pakistani and Palestinian officers. If these matters could be looked at again it would greatly increase Commonwealth amity. The pension percentage of our aid programme as a whole is not very high. To take them over would remove the fear of many people in this country who have served the Crown very well in the past.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Richard Wood: You, Mr. Speaker, and no doubt the House will be relieved to hear that in the light of the very clear case put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) and other hon. Members, there is very little I need add before we hear the Minister's reply.
This is a matter which the House of Commons has discussed on a number of occasions. It is not long ago since my hon. Friend the Member for Essex, South-East (Mr. Braine) expressed concern from this Bench on behalf of the kind of people whom we are discussing tonight, particularly those who are ineligible for supplements under the series of Pensions (Increase) Acts, because their service has been judged to be of a nongovernmental nature.
My hon. Friend has raised a particular case in which he feels there should be natural concern and those of us who have listened to him believe him to be wholly justified. He has illustrated from this case the general anomalies of which the Minister is no doubt only too conscious and which he will undoubtedly do his best to solve. In the past, we have considered these anomalies.
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) mentioned Nigeria and the delays there. I want to mention it in a rather different sense. As the House knows, there has been the case of the Nigerian Coal Corporation, which gave undertakings that the terms of service under the corporation would be no less favourable than if the people who entered into the corporation's employment had remained in Government service. It must be extremely difficult to defend the position whereby these people, after this promise had been given, should not receive the full supplements provided by the Pensions (Increase) Acts.
What I ask the Minister to do is to give the whole matter a new look. I hope that he would agree to pay very close attention to the suggestions made by my hon. Friend and by both hon. Gentlemen who followed him. I hope that he will not find it necessary to turn down this proposal completely on the argument that if my hon. Friend's suggestions were adhered to it would remove the clear


dividing lines, which would mean that more and more people would claim benefits with all sorts of unforeseen repercussions.
I believe that to be an argument of administrative convenience. In this case, where we are dealing with intensely human problems it would be an argument which unworthily bolstered up a distinction between one pensioner who receives his pension and others who do not, which many of us, and I think the Minister, who is well aware of the situation, think both unfair and illogical.

8.15 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Overseas Development (Mr. Ben Whitaker): I am glad that we have had this debate. We all know that we are talking about a group of people who have given very distinguished service, both to Britain and to the countries in which they served, performing many kinds of jobs. This House has, quite rightly, always been extremely sensitive to their rights including pensions, and how to deal with them, and including not only those who have retired but their widows and dependants following their death. I would like to thank the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Sharples) for telling me in advance of the two cases he had in mind so that I could provide as much information as possible.
I would like to add my personal view that there is an especial duty not upon hon. Members but upon the Government to consider with exceptional care the justice of these cases, in that they do not for the most part fall within the province of the Parliamentary Commissioner. It might be easier for their rapid solution if they had been included within his ambit, but that is not a matter for me. I think we would all agree that it does redouble the duty falling upon us to consider their circumstances.
As the hon. Gentleman has said this is not the first time that he has raised the case of his constituent Mr. Sable in this House. He did so in the Adjournment debate of 26th November, 1968, and subsequently the noble Lord, Lord Trevelyan, has raised the general issue of the South Yemeni pensioners in the House of Lords. I have listened closely to everything the hon. Gentleman has said and I will cer-

tainly study the record of his remarks of that particular case, and in general, to make sure there are no points in his speech I may have overlooked.
Having said that I must state that the present situation at law is as was outlined by my predecessor. I will not weary the House by repeating it generally, but the principal situation is governed by two determinate factors, one of which the hon Member outlined. Overseas civil servants, whether expatriate or local, were employed by the overseas governments concerned and not by Her Majesty's Government and their pension rights derive from legislation passed by those governments. Their pensions are awarded and paid, or should be paid, by those governments. The second point which I do not think has been stated this evening, which is equally relevant, is that it has always been the policy of the British Government to regard independent governments who have succeeded former colonial governments as inheriting all their predecessors rights and obligations. This includes liability for public service pensions.
The particular situation regarding the South Yemen is that the South Yemen Government at first paid public service benefits until 31st May, 1968. Therefore they thereby acknowledged the general principle on which the British Government have acted throughout. But, in accordance with a statement they made, they have since declared their intention to default on payments falling due since then—they say, of necessity. Subsequently the British Ambassador made representations to the South Yemen Government about the state of the pensioners. Unfortunately, Britain has not been successful in persuading the South Yemen Government to honour their obligations.
There has been one additional piece of evidence which may be of interest to the House. I was asked whether we should expect the South Yemen Government not to discriminate between certain types of pensioner who may be more sympathetic to the new Government than others. The South Yemen Ambassador to Britain wrote a letter to the Daily Telegraph on 13th November last year covering this very point. He ended his letter:
Finally, I would like to assure all expatriates who previously served in the


country that my Government regards all civil servants as one and it wishes it were in a position to help them.
So prima facie from his statement there is no wish to discriminate between individuals, but the case of the South Yemen Government, as stated by the Ambassador in that letter, is that they are not in a position financially to undertake an obligation which they wish they could undertake.
I am sure that all Members of the House share the great sympathy that I personally feel about the case of Mr. Salole. It is no solace to him if we say that hard cases make bad law. On the narrow point as to the dispute about his status, I should like to invite Mr. Sable to visit the Ministry of Overseas Development and to bring any new evidence which he may like to produce to prove his contention that he has been awarded the wrong type of status. If the hon. Member would like to accompany him and to argue his case before me, I should be prepared to give it fresh consideration without any reflection on the previous consideration given by my predecessor.
As under the legislation my right hon. Friend the Minister and myself will be acting in a semi-judicial capacity in deciding how the law applies to a particular case, it may be best if I express no personal view in advance, but I will bear very much in mind the points which have been raised on the case.
On the matter of the general review, I am happy to be able to give the House the assurance that the Government have already started a review of the whole matter of pensions. I cannot give any undertaking about its outcome, but it has been in progress for several months, and, as my right hon. Friend told the House last week, she hopes to be in a position to inform the House of the results of that review in the near future.
Arguments have been eloquently expressed on both sides of the House for a change in the whole situation. It is right that we should bear in mind the countervailing arguments. The cost of implementing concessions such as have been suggested are very hard to determine. There is the additional difficulty that there might be a standing temptation to any overseas Government to default on their obligations to their own people

in the expectation that Britain would be ready to pick up the bill.
I do not think anybody would wish these matters to be looked at in purely financial terms. We are conscious that human families are the essence of the matter, but this involves the whole principle of our relationship with overseas countries. We must work on the principle that their employees are their employees in every sense. We cannot pay the salaries of local residents employed overseas, and as pensions could be argued to be no more than a form of delayed salary we cannot agree to pay their pensions either.
There is the difficulty that once the precedent is set in any particular direction, there is a danger that Britain might find herself in totally uncharted waters and at the mercy of any Government which might wish to dishonour their own staff and leave the British Government to pick up the bill.

Mr. Hooley: Surely my hon. Friend must accept that there is a distinction between the period when these territories were under colonial rule and the period when they became independent. This is the distinction which the Tanzanian Government have made quite clear. I do not see how under present circumstances when these countries are independent they could disown an obligation of this kind and impute it to the British Government.

Mr. Whitaker: That is one of the considerations which we will have very much in mind.
I was referred to a second case involving a Mr. Sharman. I think that this is the first time that this particular case has been brought to the attention of the House. He is governed by the fact that the pensions of the former Chinese municipalities are not the responsibility of the British Government because under the Sino-British Treaty of 1943 the administration of the former international settlements in China was made over to the Chinese Government, which in turn undertook responsibility for the official obligations and liabilities of the settlements, including benefits due to former employees. Unfortunately, the present authorities in Peking refuse to honour their responsibilities in this matter.
The whole question whether any supplements should be made to quasi-governmental pensioners was fully debated in the House during the passage of the 1969 Pensions (Increase) Act. I do not wish to weary the House by reiterating what my hon. Friend and predecessor said during the Second Reading debate and in the debates in Standing Committee F at about that time, but I think the hon. Member who raised this case accepts that, given the present state of the law, Mr. Sharman's case falls undoubtedly within this category and that there has been no dispute as to his status in this respect.
Several hon. Members on both sides mentioned the unfortunate delay in various cases. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam mentioned the particularly unhappy consequences on widows. If he has any particular case in mind, I will be glad to take it up if he sends me the details, My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) asked me to confirm whether Britain is unique in its reading of its obligation regarding pensioners. I confirm that so far as I am aware Britain is unique in its present policy in this respect.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) recognised the argument against a change in that the flood gates could be opened. He then raised several cases, including one involving widows in Ceylon. Once again perhaps he will be kind enough to send me the details; if he thinks my Ministry will be ab1e to help in raising this matter with the Ceylon authorities, we would be very glad to do so.
The right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) spoke of the hardship and anxiety of dividing lines. It is obvious from the debate that there is considerable difference of opinion as to where the dividing line should be. But equally we must recognise that, wherever the dividing line is now, or whatever it may be altered to, it is inevitable that some people will fall on either side of it and that some people will feel aggrieved that the dividing line does not include them.
Therefore, I much appreciate debates such as this, because they are the best way of exploring whether justice has

been done to individuals and whether they have been judged rightly within the context of the law as it stands at present.
There is nothing that I can add to the question of the general review, except to assure hon. Members that it is being urgently considered by my Department and the Government as a whole. We hope to be in a position to put the results of the review to the House before very much longer.

HOUSE-BUILDING

8.30 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Ward: I am very glad to have this opportunity of raising the problem of the decline in house-building, because housing, its availability and its cost, is undoubtedly the most important problem that my constituents in Swindon have been bringing to me since my election to this House.
In Swindon, we have one feature which may exist in an exaggerated form when compared with other towns. It is a very high turnover rate in council houses. Swindon is an expanding town where large numbers of council houses have been built over the past decade or so. A fairly large number of people have moved into those houses, perhaps from London, for a fairly short period and then moved out to buy houses for their own occupation. That is a feature to which I shall return later, because the turnover recently has dropped sharply leading to the council house waiting list lengthening.
The demand for housing is well known in this House. It derives from those who are homeless and those in greatly substandard accommodation. It arises from the ever-growing population of the British Isles, and it arises from people marrying and having children earlier. When one talks about new house construction, this last factor is perhaps one of the most important. It has been said by the Ministry that the occupancy of newly constructed houses for sale is as low on average at 2·2 persons. They tend to be occupied by newly married couples who have children shortly after moving in.
It is my belief and that of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite that a construction programme of about ½ million houses a year is necessary to solve the


problem. That is exactly what was pledged, promised, stated and repeated often over the years by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. When they made those promises, it was difficult to see how they could possibly fail to hit their target of ½ million by 1970. When they ca me into office, they took over an accelerating house-building programme. They took over 432,000 houses actually under construction. The number of houses started had gone up year after year, and I think that it is the figure of starts which, very often, is more significant than the figure of completions. One fact is quite certain. One can only have houses at some stage after they have been started. But, over a period of a few years, by accelerating completions it is possible to produce an artificial view of the way in which the housing programme has been going.
It is true that the number of houses completed between 1964 and 1968 rose slightly each year. No doubt right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite will keep on referring to that. However, the significant point is that in each of those years the number of houses started fell slightly. That was the true underlying pattern in the housing programme. Except for 1967, which was a freak year when builders were trying to beat the betterment levy, since 1964 the number of houses started fell each year. The starts in 1968 were 394,000. It had declined to that figure. In its statement today, the Ministry does not say what was the figure of starts for the whole of 1969, but it is reported that it was 344,000, which represents a decline of 50,000. That is the proper measure of the decline of the housing programme at the moment.
The figure released this morning for completions in 1969 is 367,000. I assume that hon. Gentlemen opposite have come to apologise to the House and the country for such a dreadfully low figure, to explain what went wrong and why they have not been able to hit their target of ½ million, and to explain to the 130,000 families who need to be rehoused from slum accommodation but who cannot be because of their failure why their plans have gone so awry. The figures announced today will be greeted with sick despair by those 130,000 families, who will suffer badly as a result. What is even more alarming to everyone is

that the White Paper on Public Expenditure holds out no hope of increased public expenditure in this direction over the next few years.
At the same time as the number of houses started has been declining in this fashion, the cost has been going up alarmingly. In 1964, the average house cost £3,500. Today, it is £4,800, and it is still going up. There are many reasons for it: devaluation; £150 in selective employment tax; the interest rates that builders have to pay, which are often 15 or 16 per cent., always assuming that they can borrow enough money to finance their activities; betterment levy; petrol tax; national insurance contributions—the list goes on for ever.
It is not only the capital cost of a new house which makes it so difficult for people who want to buy. The Government's financial policies have pushed up the mortgage interest rate from 6 to 8½ per cent. over the same period. A 90 per cent. mortgage on an average house which would have cost a purchaser about £20 a month in 1964 today costs £34 6s., which is a rise of more than 50 per cent. It is no good talking about increases in wage rates, either. After increased taxes and food and other prices, certainly there is not a 50 per cent. rise left over, or anything like it. The fact is that people cannot afford to buy houses, and that is the reason why the council house waiting list in Swindon has lengthened to the extent that it has.
The phenomenon to which I referred was caused by people moving out of council houses to buy houses of their own. However, because fewer houses are being constructed for private ownership and because the cost has risen to levels where people cannot afford it, people are tending to sit tight in their council houses whereas before they would have moved into houses of their own. Therefore, the turnover has dropped. The number moving out of council houses in Swindon for private ownership in 1969 was less than half the number in 1968. That is how fast the decline has been. That is how bad the situation is and the reason why the waiting list for council houses goes up and up. My constituents are caused hardship as a result, which is why so many complain to me about the waiting time.
The country was promised½million houses by 1970. It will get 130,000 fewer than that. It was promised cheaper house prices. They have gone up by £1,300. It was promised favourable interest rates. Mortgage repayments are up by 50 per cent. These promises will not be forgotten—

Mr. R. W. Brown: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman does not wish to mislead the House. He will accept that borough councils get finance for their new building at 4 per cent., irrespective of what the total interest rate may be. I am sure that he will take that into account when he says that no help is being given. That is not in accordance with the facts.

Mr. Ward: The favourable interest rates to which I was referring, which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite promised people at successive elections, related to interest rates for owneroccupiers—mortgage borrowers. It is those interest rates that have gone up alarmingly from 6 to 8½ per cent. The people who have to pay rates of that kind do not regard them as favourable.
The people who took out 25-year mortgages at 6 per cent. when about 35 or 40 years old, expecting to pay them off before retirement, and now find that their repayments may go on until they are 75 years of age do not find those rates favourable. They regard them as a great hardship. They do not know how to deal with that kind of situation for which right hon. and hon. Gentleman opposite are responsible. Indeed, the Government are responsible for the whole economic climate, for the whole assault on the building industry and for the escalation of interest rates which has led to the decline in house-building and has had such serious implications for families waiting for houses.

8.40 p.m.

Mr. David Winnick: Mr. David Winnick (Croydon, South)
 rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. The hon. Gentleman has not indicated that he wished to speak. This is the Consolidated Fund Bill.

Mr. Winnick: I said earlier to Mr. Speaker that I might try to intervene in the debate. I am sorry if I did not actually put down my name.
I suppose that it is inevitable that the Opposition should try to cash in on the housing figures which have been published today. Indeed, there would be some surprise if they did not take every opportunity of trying to exploit the figures published by the Ministry of Housing.
We on this side are deeply concerned about the housing figures. We have always had, and will continue to have, a deep and passionate interesting in housing. If, before the war, unemployment was the No. 1 problem for so many people, then certainly housing in the postwar years has been the No. 1 problem for so many people who have been able to solve their employment problem but have not been able to find adequate accomodation. So we are, and must remain, concerned about any fall in housing figures.
I should like to make one or two points which were not mentioned by the hon. Member for Swindon (Mr. Christopher Ward) in opening the debate. Just before we broke up for Christmas, I expressed anxiety, in a short debate which I initiated, at the way that a number of Conservative-controlled councils have cut down their house-building programmes. I am concerned about council housing—I will come to owner-occupation later— because people on the waiting lists; in acute housing distress, who are not in a position, even if the obtaining of mortgages was easier, to obtain a mortgage, can solve their housing problems only by being rehoused by the local authority.
It appears that a number of councils, which have recently become Conservative-controlled, are drastically reducing their council house-building programmes. It may be argued that this is inevitable because of the general economic climate, because of land prices and difficulties over sites. It seems, however, that a number of councils have been reducing their housing programmes purely and simply for political reasons. For example, the main Conservative spokesman on housing made clear that in his view it was desirable to drastically reduce the number of council houses being built.
Let us consider the Greater London Council. We know of the acute housing problem in Greater London. Yet the chairman of the housing committee of the council went on record saying that


there is a need to reduce council house dwellings in London not for economic reasons, shortage of sites and all the rest, but for other reasons. Unfortunately, it seems to be a political objection to council houses being built.
I am aware that my right hon. Friend has been chasing up a number of local authorities which have been reducing their council house-building programmes. When the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies to the debate, perhaps he will be able to tell us what action is being taken against those local councils which are obviously not carrying out their responsibilities. I am particularly concerned about the position in the Greater London area. If the London boroughs and the G.L.C. are not willing to carry out their obligations, I should like to know what further action will be undertaken by the Ministry.
I am also concerned about places where huge exclusively private developments are taking place where there is no kind of council development. Has the Ministry any power to intervene in such cases? It seems undesirable that, in areas of acute housing need—certainly, in the London area, where large private development is taking place—the local authorities should be contracting cut of any responsibility. This has happened in my constituency, and I am sure that it has happened in the constituencies of many of my right hon. and hon. Friends.
We are particularly concerned about housing, and must remain so, because so many problems are associated with inadequate housing. Recently, a report came out about children coming from socially deprived backgrounds. Most of the difficulties arise from inadequate and poor housing, so there is a tremendous need to relieve the housing burdens of so many people by providing council dwellings.
Having made that point, I want to refer now to the situation in the private sector. I said that the Opposition would exploit the housing figures—I am not surprised at that—but we on this side of the House remain concerned about the cutback in the private sector as well as in the public sector. I do not see any contradiction in being a champion of council housing and, at the same time, wishing to extend owner occupation.
For example, the Government introduced the option mortgage scheme, which has helped many people to become owner-occupiers. It cannot be said that we have some kind of ideological dislike of owner-occupation, otherwise we would not have brought in the option mortgage scheme.
We know that arising from the Government's economic policy there has been a severe credit squeeze during the last two to two and a half years. I shall not go into the arguments about the Government's economic policy at the time. I should probably be ruled out of order if I did. When the Government introduced certain Measures two years ago, it was obvious that the housing programme would be adversely affected, but now that the Government have achieved a great deal of their aim in their economic policy I suggest that the time has come to lift the credit squeeze as it affects the housing market. The time has come for an easing of credit restrictions so that we can once again build the number of houses, in both the public and the private sectors, which we would like to see.
We on this side have always claimed that housing should receive priority. Perhaps, inevitably, because of the economic climate, it was necessary for a cutback to take place, but now that the situation is improving I hope that every effort will be made by the Government to relax the credit squeeze and ease some of the difficulties with which people have been confronted in trying to get mortgages.

Mr. Ward: I am pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman say that. Will he ask the Government to give a higher priority to relaxing the credit squeeze on builders than on some of the other things which have been asked for; for example, the abolition of prescription charges? Which has the higher priority?

Mr. Winnick: I shall not debate the difference in priority between the abolition of prescription charges and housing. I do not consider that there is competition between the two. When we debate prescription charges, I shall let the hon. Gentleman know my view. What I want to see is an easing of restrictions on the housing market, because it is obvious that many people are facing tremendous difficulties in obtaining mortgages. I should


like to see the position restored in which more people are once again able to get a mortgage from their local councils, something which stopped because of the economic climate.
The Opposition will make the appropriate noises, and we expect that, but we who are not baiting the Government recognise the difficulties confronting many of our constituents, and again I say that we need council dwellings. These are necessary for people on the waiting list who cannot solve their problems in any other way, but many people would be able to solve their problems if they were able to obtain mortgages. There is, therefore, a need for a general relaxation on finance in the building industry and for mortgages generally.
There is a need for many voluntary organisations to come into the housing market. I should like to see trade unions taking a more active role by using their money to form housing associations to help their members. I had a long argument with the Chairman of the G.L.C. Housing Committee. I said that housing associations could not be a substitute for council dwellings, and that remains my view. Council dwellings are still required, and will be for many years to come.
At the same time, I should like to see the development of housing associations. To a certain extent, we have not done as much in this particular field as I would like to have seen done. A number of voluntary organisations, the trade unions and others, could be using their finance to very useful social purpose in the housing market.
I understand that on Thursday next there is to be a debate on housing, initiated by the Opposition. Regardless of the playing of politics by the Opposition, we on this side will remain concerned about housing, just as before the war Socialists were concerned about unemployment. I beg the Government to recognise the feelings of so many of our people who are not concerned to play party politics and relax the squeeze on credit for housing purposes.

8.51 p.m.

Mr. Graham Page: If anyone is playing party politics, it is the hon. Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick). If he reads some of the figures which have been given in recent debates

he will see that they show that Labour-controlled councils have had to pull in their horns just as much over council housing building as the Conservative-controlled councils.
It was the deliberate and admitted policy of this Government when they took office to run down the private sector so that the resources might be devoted to increasing the public sector. Now we see that the policy has totally failed and there has been a rundown in both sectors.
The housing figures which have been announced today are absolutely shattering—shattering to the hopes of tens of thousands of homeless and unhappily housed, shattering to the elderly, the newly-weds and the big families, and shattering to the last thread of confidence which anyone could have had in this Labour Government. "Half a million new homes a year by 1970" was the general election pledge solemnly made by the right hon. Gentleman the candidate for Huyton which won him the position of Prime Minister of this country. Fewer than 350,000 new homes a year in 1970 will be the fact which will deprive the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Harold Wilson) of his position as Prime Minister.
Never have a Government let down the country with such a crash as this Government have done in the matter of housing—in their failure to provide homes for the people. Each year there has been a failure to reach the rising target which would have brought the promised figure of ½ million a year by 1970. I know that the figure was abandoned about two years ago, but why, if we were told in the last two General Elections that ½ million houses a year by 1970 were necessary, are we now told, rather complacently I thought, by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister today, that if we produce 370,000 houses a year until 1973 we shall have a surplus of homes.
It must be nonsense to suggest, when one looks at the conditions of many of our homes, the conditions in which people are living, that building only 370,000 houses a year would produce a surplus of homes over households by 1973. If indeed that is the policy of the Government let us have it stated clearly. Is it really the policy of the Government only to build that figure in the


next three to four years in the hope that they will have solved the housing problem? In any case, they will not be in office for that time.
In the same breath, the Minister tells us that the reduction in house building and the terrible figures this year are very sad but it is all due to the economic situation, which is the Government's fault, and mortgage interest rates, or just the interest rates, which, again, are the Governmeint's fault—and he adds, for good measure, that we must blame the Ronan Point disaster. That implies that he wishes that there could have been ½ million new homes built a year. How can he then say that only 370,000 are necessary? There is a great contradiction there.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Reginald Freeson): He did not say that.

Mr. Page: I withdraw what I have said at once if the newspapers are wrong, but that is what I have read today—that if we went on building 370,000 houses a year we should have an overall surplus, a crude surplus, whatever it is called, by 1973. If that has not been said, and the Minister cares to deny it, I shall be only too happy to withdraw and to accept that it is not his policy, for it would be a disastrous policy if it were.
The figures for this year show that the Government have let the country down. True—these figures will, no doubt, come in the hon. Gentleman's speech—more houses have been built in the past five years than were built in the last five years of the Conservative Government. But this Government took over a rising trend in house building. The policy was laid in 1964 by the number of starts. It had been decided, before this Government took office, that this was the time at which the country could devote more resources and give greater priority to housing.
That was clear from the number of starts in 1964, and, indeed, it was why the promises were made by both parties at the time of the 1964 election. That was the hope of all of us, that the stage was set for an increase in house-building up to ½ million a year. Now, the Labour Government have let the country down.

8.57 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Reginald Freeson): The Government will not be judged on their housing policy by just one year's completion figures. They will be judged by their total record on housing since coming into office, a good record and far better than that of any previous Government. In so far as we have fallen short, we have fallen short of the standards which we set ourselves as a Labour Party. We have not fallen short, nor are we falling short, of the standards supposedly set by the party opposite.
I do not know to what extent the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), who always seems happiest when the situation is saddest, has had personal experience of the housing situation in the worst areas during the years preceding the change of Government. Some of us—more on this side than on his—have had a great deal of experience of these problems.

Mr. Graham Page: I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is implying. He accuses me of knowing nothing about housing before his Government took office. Over many years, I have fought elections in constituencies, and lost them —that type of constituency—and I have held what are called "surgeries". I know about these things. The hon. Gentleman accuses me, and I give him the answer. Of course I have had knowledge of housing, and over many more years than he has had.

Mr. Freeson: The hon. Gentleman ought not to misquote and distort statements and then put them in the mouths of others. If he had heard me out, he would have heard me say that hon. Members on this side have had more personal experience of trying to administer housing services and deal with housing problems in the worst parts of our cities under preceding Governments than he has had.
Let me point out some of our experiences which led to the situation which we faced when we came into office. Much play has been made, and was made just now by the hon. Gentleman, with the level of housing construction in 1964—by a happy coincidence, the last year of the


Conservative Government, General Election year. We had experience of the many years which preceded it, when statements were made by then Ministers of Housing representing the Conservative Party that as from 1955 on slum clearance was being given first priority. But, by an odd coincidence, at the same time as they were making those statements in the House and elsewhere, which I recall very clearly, the level of local authority housing construction dropped year after year until we approached the 1964 election.
I do not propose to bore the House with a long list of statistics—they are available, as the hon. Gentleman knows —to show how we dropped to the level of about 100,000 local authority houses each year in the years before the 1964 election.

Mr. Peter Mahon: Would my hon. Friend not agree that the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), who, for many years, has never seemed to be anything but a fair-minded man, has been guilty of a singular omission tonight in making his accusation? I am sorry that I did not hear all his speech. But the leader of his own council, Crosby Council, recently paid public testimony to this Government's record, which has enabled that council to build a record number of houses, not only for letting but for mortgage purposes.

Mr. Freeson: I am grateful for that intervention. No doubt it will, to some extent, set the record straight in regard to the hon. Member.
This was the kind of situation which we faced, among many other factors, when we came into office. I will discount the sudden rise of housing construction in 1964—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] Because it has nothing to do with the many years which preceded it, in which, with the exception of four or five years out of the 13, even a target of 300,000 was never achieved, despite the great pledges—

Mr. Graham Page: It was.

Mr. Freeson: If the hon. Gentleman will check the record, he will find that in only a minority of the years during which his party was in office was that figure achieved or exceeded—

Mr. Graham Page: Is the hon. Gentleman talking of the United Kingdom figures—or just those of England?

Mr. Freeson: The United Kingdom.

Mr. Graham Page: Well, it was exceeded: of course it was.

Mr. Freeson: I can only refer the hon. Gentleman to the record, where he will find that he is wrong.
We said that we would achieve a rising figure in both the private and the public sector, despite what the hon. Member for Crosby sneeringly referred to as our prejudices against owner-occupation. In our period of office, we have done just that. I will come to the present situation, but, taking the period as a whole, there is no denying that there has been nearly a 25 per cent. increase in housing construction in this country during the past five years of this party's rule—consistent, despite the fact that now we are in a difficult year.
It is for this reason, as well as a number of others, that we will be judged on our total record and not just on one year—

Mr. Ward: The hon. Gentleman says that this has been a consistent increase. Does he agree that the number of houses started has fallen every year except for 1967? Is that consistent?

Mr. Freeson: It is not possible to have a consistent drop in the number of houses started each year if at the same time one is increasing the number completed up until a year before.
Two million dwellings have been completed in the past five years, and that represents an increase of 24 per cent. to 25 per cent. on the preceding five years. Hon. Gentlemen opposite may try to interpret that in various ways and may endeavour to wish it away for political purposes, but it is a statement of fact and a fact of life which they must accept.
I come to the present position. There is no doubt, as has been said tonight and on previous occasions, that from about two years ago, when the 500,000 figure was set aside as a target as a result of the economic decisions made at that time and continued since, a change occurred in the house-building programme. We have seen this in the last


12 months or so, and much publicity has been given to the figures. That has given rise to this debate—what one might call a mini-debate—and will be reflected in the debate which will take place on Thursday. It has been largely an economic matter, centainly for the private sector, and nobody has denied this.
In so far as it has been necessary to take these measures to get the economy right and to get a balance of payments situation unexampled in the years since the war, we have been providing the basis for a sound housing policy as well as for sound other policies for Britain in the years ahead. If there is to be expansion arising from this economic achievement generally in the economy, then that is bound to affect the housing situation.
Other factors have, of course, been at work, in addition to those which understandably and justifiably have been mentioned tonight, particularly in connection with the private sector. The remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, South (Mr. Winnick) were particularly relevant in this connection.
Reference has also been made to the public sector and the policy that has been adopted by a number of local authorities. I was invited to comment on my experiences in visiting a number of local authorities about whose housing policies we have been concerned. I do not propose to give a detailed statement tonight on this issue. It would not be appropriate for me to make such a statement because this round of visits is not yet complete. They are not conclusive visits. They intentionally leave open the prospect of a dialogue continuing between Ministry officials and officials of the local authorities concerned with a view to getting their programmes improved and getting other aspects of housing policy advanced on a scale which has not yet been achieved by these authorities.
In addition to the 20 local authorities first listed in October, there may be other authorities which we would wish to contact by visits. Authorities already come to the Ministry and with them, although they come to see us on particular issues, we discuss wider aspects of their housing programmes and policies. This is one sphere in which we can seek to persuade and influence authorities to

improve their house-building programmes.
Despite this background of economic difficulties facing our housing programme, slum clearance has been running at a record rate. If we are to deal with the slum clearance and related problems, it is, of course, on public enterprise that the greatest emphasis must be placed.

Mr. Winnick: I appreciate the efforts which my hon. Friend and his colleagues in the Ministry are making in persuading local authorities to carry out their proper obligations. If persuasion does not succeed, for instance in the London boroughs and the G.L.C., have the Government anything further in mind to make local authorities carry out their obligations to people so desperately in need of housing?

Mr. Freeson: I shall take the opportunity of at least touching on that point later in my remarks.
In the meantime I wish to comment further on the position where we are attempting—and I am personally involved in very intensive visits in the country—to get local authorities to improve their housing programmes where forward projections show marked signs of dropping. But, while we are doing that, what do we have from leading spokesmen of the party opposite despite their crocodile tears about the homeless? Their leading spokesmen are calling on local authorities to cut back their house-building programmes.
We have had the same echoed by some, not all, chairmen of Conservative housing authorities. We have had a certain right hon. Gentleman who always seems to be leading the party opposite from the sidelines, not echoing, but giving the lead and urging that there should be a dismantling of local authority housing. I have heard leading spokesmen for the Conservative Party outside this House saying that they agree with such a policy even if they cannot implement it immediately. This is one of the reasons—I am not saying it is the only reason—why a number of local authorities under Conservative leadership in the last few years have been cutting back on house-building programmes and housing starts from time to time.

Mr. Graham Page: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that he is taking only


one half of the argument? The other half is that housing societies and housing associations can take up a very large part of the responsibilities of housing those people whom councils would otherwise house.

Mr. Freeson: It is not possible—I speak quite categorically, in general for housing societies or housing associations, which are a somewhat different category of organisation—to handle slum clearance problems. If necessary I am quite prepared to discuss this in detail on another occasion and I will refer to it in brief tonight. I do not say that as any antagonist of housing associations. As my hon. Friends know, I have been active in the housing association movement, what is now known as the co-ownership movement, for many more years than I have been in this House. I am still a great proponent of what is sometimes exaggeratedly called the third arm in the housing field.
Let us have no illusions; the main responsibility for slum clearance and the complex of urban renewal programming must continue to lie with local authorities, including those which are now cutting back on their house-building programmes not always for sound social financial reasons but because they have not got the policy or political will to carry on with those programmes and extend them.
It is suggested that we are making it difficult for local authorities to do this, but never before has there been such a level of Government assistance, both financial and advisory in terms of money and in terms of expertise, made available to local authorities. There has been effective legislation introduced under this Government which will take its place in the housing field in years to come well beyond the simple concept of building houses. It is we who introduced the Housing Act, 1969, which provides the greatest flexibility and potentially one of the greatest instruments for urban renewal we have yet seen in this country if it is used imaginatively and willingly in conjunction with other legislation such as certain powers under the Town and Country Planning Act. 1968. and other developments of policy in housing.
I go on to deal with these points because, whatever has been the record

of the past five years, there is no intention to sit back smugly and rest on our housing policy. We shall continue to press for an expansion of public authority enterprise in urban renewal. We are investigating possibilities, including that of establishing a public agency to deal with the provision of housing and urban renewal services, not only where local authorities may unnecessarily fall down on the job, but also to service local authorities which would willingly wish this kind of assistance to be provided.
Recently my right hon. Friend issued a circular on slum clearance programmes projected forward into the mid-1970s, asking local authorities to make their returns on an annual programme basis by the end of this month.
There have been the new developments in new town and new city plans. There has been the expansion of housing societies and housing association work. We are examining the problems that have emerged as the years have passed, and as housing societies and housing associations have gained experience, to see how there can be a further expansion of this activity. We are also examining the question of the potential of owner-occupation in solving urban renewal problems—which we think has a special significance for the future health of our cities. We are studying the possibility of expanding the services which the National Building Agency can provide in housing to local authorities.
There is also the possibility of further sources of information and understanding of the housing problems which we are seeking to establish. Hon. Members will know of the National Sample Survey of the Condition of Properties, which was undertaken in 1967 and was the first of its kind in Britain. Since then we have embarked upon a series of conurbation studies to get much closer to the realities of slum clearance and obsolescence problems.
Let there be no mistake about it: these problems have been consistently under-estimated, much less so by this Government than by preceding Governments. Before I entered the House in 1964, I heard time and time again the proposition from the then Government and their Ministers that Britain had about 600,000 slum houses. We always challenged that figure. Our studies and


examination have established that the figure is much nearer 1½ million than the figure which was smugly and complacently accepted by the Tories.
It is for these reasons that we are concerned to see an expansion of public enterprise and of housing policy in the communities to cover the whole field of owner-occupation, municipal development, housing associations, new construction, modernisation, and improvement areas under the Housing Act, 1969, to quote just some of the things which we have initiated since coming to office.
None of this is said to underplay the disappointment we have felt this year at seeing, after the first four years of record housebuilding, that we have dropped back below the 400,000 we had built up to and exceeded in our first four years. Taking the totality of our record, though, there is no question that —this can be said without smugness or complacency about the problems yet to be dealt with—this has been the finest record in house building and other aspects of housing policy that any Government have achieved in Britain.

Mr. Speaker: Does the hon. Member for Shoreditch and Finsbury (Mr. R. W. Brown) wish to speak in this debate?

Mr. R. W. Brown: I had intended to, Mr. Speaker, but, having heard the speech of my hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, I am prepared to forgo that pleasure.

NURSING PROFESSION

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House that this is the fifth of 25 debates that are to taken place during the night. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

9.20 p.m.

Mr. William Hamilton: I will do my best, Mr. Speaker.
The House will recall that, on 2nd December last, I initiated a debate on precisely the question of the nursing profession, and that, in his reply, my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State, who is also to reply to this debate, said that the pay and conditions of service for nurses were determined not by the Secretary of State but by the negotiating

machinery between the two sides of the Nurses and Midwives' Whitley Council.
My hon. Friend pointed out that on the management side were represented the hospitals and the local authorities, plus representatives from the various Ministries, and that on the staff side were representatives of the professional associations and the various trade unions. He also pointed out, quite justly and clearly, that the last settlement, which comes to an end in April next, was worth over £37 million to the profession. He gave details of that agreement which I need not now repeat.
Despite the improvements, the dissatisfaction of the nursing profession with its lot has intensified. Morale has declined and militancy, if of a genteel character, has increased. The decline in morale is not caused solely by low pay. It is partly due to a lack of efficient organisation by the nurses themselves. Twelve different groups represent them on the Whitley Council—12 out of the 29 representations in all on the staff side in the Whitley Council.
Secondly, the career structure of the nursing profession is unsatisfactory and it seems that the implementation of the Salmon Committee proposals on this matter is proceeding very slowly. Thirdly, the administrative set-up of the hospital service is too diffuse, too fragmented. I hope that that situation will be remedied in due course by the reforms that are getting under way in local government.
I think that it is true to say that, since the beginning of the National Health Service, indeed before then, the nurses have been and were subsidising the hospital service with their cheap labour. Their service has been consistently and persistently underrated and underpaid by successive Governments and acquiesced in by an apathetic public. It is astounding that the standards of care have remained so high and that the recruitment figures have not been more calamitous. That these disasters have not occurred to any marked degree is a tribute to the dedication of these men and women and their weakness and meekness at the negotiating table.
This very day, in this period of time in the hospital service, the demand for nursing services is becoming greater. Patients tend to stay in hospital for shorter periods. This means that more


patients are occupying the same number of beds over any given period. That, in turn, means intensified demand on the nursing staff. It also means, of course, when patients go out, as they are going out after much shorter periods, an increasing demand on the domiciliary nursing services. This brings in the local authority nurses and health services.
In 1968, the number of in-patients rose by 5 per cent., or roughly 250,000, over the figure for 1966, and I understand that, in the one year, 1967–68, maternity cases went up by 21 per cent. There is no problem of productivity there.
The new surgical and medical techniques are making greater demands on nursing personnel. For instance, the Royal College of Nursing quoted an example of an intensive care unit of eight beds which might well need 24 State-registered nurses to staff, plus the supporting enrolled nurses, students and others. This is some measure of the demands made on our nurses.
Recruitment has not and is not keeping pace with this increased demand. Over 50 per cent. of those currently nursing either are unqualified or are in training and, therefore, in need of supervision. Very often—alarmingly too often—patients are being nursed by trainee or unskilled personnel, that is, by unskilled labour. This is unfair to those doing the nursing and it is unfair and possibly even dangerous to the patient.
It is this disparity between supply and demand for nurses which is shown by the closure of wards, the delay in opening new units, restrictions on hospital admissions and the increasing length of waiting lists. It is no exaggeration to say that the Health Service is fast approaching a crisis of the utmost gravity. In the year 1967–68, there were 3,000 fewer student nurses in training than in the previous year. Over the next few years, the indications are that the number of young people reaching the age of 18 will be reducing and, therefore, there will be fewer available for the nursing profession.
What we are getting in the hospitals now to an alarming degree is a team of cheap, exploited—what we call, mistakenly, student—labour in the wards, backed up by an all-too-inadequate num-

ber of highly trained and ill-paid nurses and sisters. The number of student nurses who leave during the course of their training is well over one-third and in some hospitals it is as high as four out of five. This outstripping of supply and demand has meant an intolerable increase in the pressures on the nursing staff, pressures arising from the need to provide a more highly skilled service for a greater number of people.
The physical and emotional strains are often further increased by having to work in old hospital buildings, very often in over-crowded wards inadequately equipped. All too frequently we get public disclosures of inadequacies, especially in psychiatric hospitals, where one might get as many as 80 patients to a ward—that is not uncommon—often being looked after by three or four nurses on day shift and perhaps only one at night. There was one ward recently which had 130 patients. In many wards, beds are so close together that there is no room to put even a locker between them, let alone for the nurses to walk between them.
I mention these facts to show that a vast improvement in pay is only the first step towards improving morale, though nevertheless an important and vital one. Nursing is a 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year job, and this round-the-clock, round-the-year service ought to have a pay structure to reflect that uniqueness.
That brings me immediately to the Whitley Council's latest proposals. It proposes a 22 per cent. increase for nurses over two years. Percentages can be misleading. The offer sounds a lot. But the proposition is that the award shall be divided into two parts, with roughly 15 per cent. in the first year and 7 per cent. as from 1st April, 1971. I wonder how much of that will be swallowed up by price increases before it is granted. How much will be taken back in increased charges within the hospitals? Probably at least half. It is far too little spread over far too long.
Let us not forget—and the National Union of Public Employees has made this point—that the nurses suspect that other problems might be swept under the carpet during the two years. The 84-hour fortnight, for instance, might not be considered and it is very important to a


profession which is not paid overtime, which is an important consideration.
Under these proposals, a staff nurse in a general hospital would get a maximum salary of £1,197 by April, 1971. That is £23 a week gross and take-home pay would be much less than that. This is for key personnel, the nursing staff in any hospital, highly trained, a highly experienced, intelligent girl doing this kind of work—£23 gross and considerably less than that net. I looked up the average earnings of male manual workers over 21 in manufacturing industry in 1969. The figure was £24 12s. So by April, 1971, this staff nurse will be more than 30s. a week worse off than the average manual worker in manufacturing industry. By April, 1971, that £24 12s. could well be £30.
The gap between the staff nurse, the key worker in the hospital, and the average manual manufacturing worker could be widened. Many manual workers get a little more than that.
A ward sister will reach a maximum of £1,584 a year by April, 1971, I think that it is £100 more for a nursing sister in a psychiatric hospital. That is £30 a week for an educated, highly trained young woman, responsible for running a ward, responsible for the care of all the patients in the ward and for teaching and supervising students, pupils and other nursing staff.
I find these salary scales quite appalling and some measure of the neglect of the party opposite. When I recall that the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), when he was Minister of Health in 1961, said to the nurses:
Not more than 2½ per cent. for you people".
at a time when their salaries were very much less than now, I believe that it is an absolute outrage that the country and the House tolerated that kind of thing.
Let us take the top of the scale, the chief nursing officer, responsible maybe for the administration of 20 hospitals. The maximum that she would get would be £3,927 which is over £1,000 less than the molt junior Minister in Government —over £1,000 less than the junior fellow making the tea across at Whitehall. Our values are quite wrong and outrageous. At the other end of the scale, a student nurse aged 18 in a general hospital will

get a rise from £8 10s. 4d., including £1 a week meal allowance, to £9 7s. 6d. in April of this year and £9 18s. 5d. in April, 1971, which is less than £10 a week for a girl who could have five O levels, who could be qualified to go to teacher training college. This is cheaper than any labourer outside an Asiatic paddy field. The House and the country ought not to tolerate it any longer.
A student nurse starting training at the age of 21 or over will get £14 4s. 2d. gross in April of this year, £14 16s. 10d. in April, 1971, as against £11 17s. 4d. today. These girls are not students in the accepted sense. They are damned hard workers on the wards every day of the week. We should recognise that if accepted these scales are completely inadequate even if fully implemented this year.
It has just been reported on the tape that the Whitley Council talks today have broken down and are to be resumed in a fortnight. The Under-Secretary is turning round as if to question that statement, but it is on the tape. It is quite clear that at its meeting last week the Cabinet took a decision on this matter. Presumably the Ministry's representatives on the Whitley Council machinery have laid down that any award would be spread over two years. The House has an opportunity and a responsibility to put increased pressure on the Government before the next meeting of the Whitley Council.
If we fail in that duty, or Her Majesty's Government fail to respond to the pressures put upon them, then we shall get and deserve the censure of the nation. If there is one pay claim in which we can err on the side of generosity with complete impunity, it is this one. I hope that the Government and the House will rid themselves once and for all of this long-standing charge of meanness to a section of the community which has been for too long the silent, dedicated, impoverished service.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose—

Mr. Speaker: I should like to make two observations. This is the fifth of 25 debates throughout the night. I appeal from time to time for reasonably brief speeches. I notice hon. Members rising who have not indicated that they wish to take part in this particular debate


on the Consolidated Fund Bill. It would help me if they were so to indicate.

9.36 p.m.

Mrs. Jill Knight: I am most grateful for the opportunity to intervene in this debate. As a tribute to your generosity, Mr. Speaker, my speech will be one of extreme brevity.
I found myself an astonishing number of times this evening in agreement with the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton), which is a rare occurence indeed. But I wish briefly to take up one or two points which he did not appear to mention, or mentioned only briefly, and which are important.
The hon. Gentleman was right in saying that it is not only the matter of pay which worries nurses at present. A point which was brought up several times by nurses in their visit to the House last week was the number of times they are engaged in duties other than nursing. This happens a great deal, particularly after 5 o'clock on a Friday evening and continues throughout the weekend. Nurses have to undertake these duties simply because they are the only available people to carry them out. The duties do not involve nursing sick people, but are almost office duties, some porters' duties, some even involve making up medicines. This is quite wrong.
Another point which the hon. Gentleman raised briefly was the need for a complete restructuring of the nurses' pay system. Nurses have admitted to me that, although they have been engaged in nursing only a short time in comparison with the sister in charge of the ward, that sister receives only £200 a year more than the junior nurse, although, of course, her value and ability is far and away above that of the other category of nurse.
I should like to mention some of the bones of contention. One involves the number of times in which nurses have to drop in pay when they train for another grade of nursing. If a girl is a staff nurse on general nursing and wishes to train for midwifery, she must suffer a drop in salary of quite severe propertions. Some of these young nurses have taken on hire purchase agreements or have certain commitments which they must meet. I have spoken to several nurses

who have found themselves quite unable to continue with their training when they wish to go on to another branch of their profession.
This applies not only to midwifery, but also to psychiatric nursing or to the category of nursing which involves looking after people in their own homes. Any nurse who wishes to broaden her experience to embrace other categories of nursing by training for them must face this drop in salary. The strain imposed, for example, upon a male nurse with a wife and children to support is particularly marked in the financial sense.
Other professions do not suffer a similar penalty. Once a teacher, for example, has a degree or diploma, his rate of pay goes up commensurate to the distinction he has gained. If that teacher then decides to take a geographical course or some other course he does not drop pay, but quite rightly continues to be paid the same amount of money.
A nurse who decides to take the midwifery course does not simply sit in a lecture hall writing in a notebook. She is on the wards, nursing. Surely she is infinitely more valuable than a completely raw recruit. This point must be taken into consideration, for it is a serious matter. I am sure that the Minister will bear it in mind and will mention it in his reply.
There has been a very severe nursing shortage in Birmingham. Throughout the recent influenza epidemic it is not stating the case too strongly to say that some deaths have occurred because of the shortage in the nursing profession. High salaries are being paid outside the National Health Service to lure a girl away from nursing in the hospitals. These are paid in jobs in the industrial world involving nursing in a factory in which the girl concerned will be paid a very much higher salary. This will certainly provide an incentive to her to go to that sort of job.
The awards made recently should not be spread over two years. It is a little hard that there should be two bites at a rather withered cherry. The awards should all be in the one year. We all admire enormously the patience of the nursing profession over many years. When Members of Parliament were lobbied by nurses last week, I could not


help noticing that they had not taken the day off and left their wards unattended. They made the journey to London in their free time. Earlier, the teachers simply left their classes, but the nurses did not desert their wards, and they deserve our sympathy and consideration for the way in which they look after the patients in their care.

9.43 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: It is very important on occasions to demonstrate that the House is united in its opinions. When we are thinking of the House discussing 25 subjects throughout the night, perhaps no one is more important than this. That is my reason for intervening in the debate, because all that I am concerned with is the broad justice of their case.
In common with other hon. Members, I met a delegation of my own nurses last week, and I was so impressed by their moderation and persuasion that I thought it right to support my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton).
We owe a public responsibility to people like nurses who, after all, are in public service and in a weak position. Of all wage and salary earners, they are probably in the weakest position. The nature of their occupation weakens their position. A nurse serves as a nurse in many capacities, and those capacities are divided in themselves.
The nurses are also in a weak position because they are isolated. Recently, I took part in an inquiry into student unrest. By the nature of their work, nurses are very much divorced from students. As a result of this debate, I hope that the National Union of Students will pay more attention to those of their members who are training to be nurses. They are isolated equally because they are subject to a very cloistered discipline which, again, makes it more difficult for them to express their opinions. My hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) are to be congratulated on taking this opportunity to see that we discuss the subject.
Nowadays, we judge claims by productivity. My hon. Friend has given some figures. I apologise for the jargon, but the figure which impressed me was that

patient throughput has been doubled in the last 20 years. That is a remarkable achievement. Whether it is so or not, I know that nurses today are subject to far greater tension and pressure than they were years ago. Their life is more intense than it was.
Another figure which impresses me is the very serious one which reveals that 35 per cent. of nurses going into training drop out before the end of their courses. I wish that there was a better comparison between nurses and other students. That is a fantastic rate of drop out and must reflect conditions in our hospitals.
Hon. Members in all parts of the House clearly share the view that our nurses are in an exceptional position. Back-bench hon. Members have always felt this to be the case. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary may say that he has no direct responsibility, but let him use his good offices and tell us tonight that he thinks that our nurses have a fair claim to receive the whole increase, because that will give them the fillip that they require.
Not only have we to improve conditions and provisions for the training of nurses; we have to do it at a faster rate than we have been doing for the past few years. We cannot congratulate ourselves for making things better. They have to be much better if nurses are to be recruited and retained in the hospital service. I hope that my hon. Friend can give some solace and comfort to those of us who are concerned about the situation.

9.48 p.m.

Dr. N. P. Winstanley: I join the right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) in thanking the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) for giving us an opportunity once again to debate this very important subject. We know that the hon. Gentleman has been indefatigable in his support for nurses and has gone on raising this issue over the years—I regret to say, too many years. Indeed, I recall that my hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) made his maiden speech on the subject of nurses' pay in 1962. It is regrettable that we are still in this situation.
I am glad of an opportunity to say a few words on this subject. As a doctor who has worked and lived in hospitals for many years, I have had an opportunity of seeing their work at close quarters and the rapid way in which it has changed over the last decade or two. It is no longer a matter of placing a shawl round the poor wounded soldier or laying a cool hand on a fevered brow. Our nurses carry out a highly technical job. They have the kind of work which warrants a reward and career structure very different from the one which it now attracts. The job is quite different. Tonight, in all our hospitals, even relatively untrained nurses are carrying out procedures which were unheard of when I was a medical student. They are procedures upon which a great deal depends; procedures upon which patients' lives depend. I am glad of the opportunity to say this as a doctor.
I am glad, too, that the medical profession has from time to time come out publicly in favour of improvements in the pay and conditions of nurses. But recently there have been signs that the profession has been concentrating on its own problems and has perhaps been a little jealous of the changes in the career which nursing has become. I hope that we shall soon hear the medical profession as a whole coming out strongly in favour of a new deal for nurses.
We must get away from the old idea of arrangements under which we in this country were prepared to exploit people's sense of vocation. We must provide the right kind of inducements and structure. Sometimes this kind of attitude is blamed on Florence Nightingale. But if we go back to her words we will find that she campaigned for recognition of nursing as a real job entitling it to a proper salary.
I accept that the nursing profession is, in part, responsible for delay in its case being met. There is a tendency for those who have suffered under the old regime, as it were, not to be quite as sympathetic to the new case as others might be. I find this as a doctor. I recall that when I qualified the pay of a house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary was 19s. 2d. a week. When I hear resident hospital doctors complaining about their conditions I am inclined to compare them with my conditions. I

am quite wrong to do that. I should compare their conditions with those of other people here and now. This is what the nursing profession has at last started to do. I salute the leaders of the nursing profession on having at last changed their attitude and realised that they are in a different kind of occupation which has to be recognised in a different way.
Let us also acknowledge that nurses are peculiarly handicapped in this sphere. They do an essential job in the uttermost sense of the word. They are not in a position to withdraw their labour in any circumstances. Indeed, they would not be nurses were they to contemplate that kind of action. They are not people of that kind. So, first, they are handicapped in that way from a negotiating point of view.
Secondly, they have a monopoly employer. This is never a happy situation for any worker. A nurse cannot say, "I will not work any longer for this National Health Service. I will work for this other National Health Service." I know that there is private medicine here and there; but, in essence, there is only one employer—the Government.
That brings me to the third handicap; namely, that they are also civil servants. Sometimes the Government have to take certain actions over the economy; they have to try to control wages in one way or another. They are right to do so. But the tools at their disposal are rather limited, and any action that they can take over wages outside sometimes takes a long time. However, the Government can take immediate action over the people that they employ. Unhappily, they have done this from time to time. That is why we have recollections of the Geddes Axe, and so on. But people in State employment, although they may be privileged in certain ways, are handicapped in that way.
Because, from a negotiating point of view, the nurses are handicapped, in these three important ways, Parliament has a special responsibility to ensure that they are not exploited. We have that responsibility towards nurses as citizens. We also have that responsibility towards the National Health Service.
The National Health Service is in difficulties because of acute staff shortages. We talk about a rearrangement


of the way that we run matters. But in the long term the efficiency of the National Health Service depends on the number and quality of people who do the work. Therefore, we must be conscious of any problems in recruitment. The Minister will understand that a nursing shortage snowballs. If a hospital is short of nurses, it soon becomes even more short of nurses.
If there is a bad hospital, with bad circumstances, and bad conditions, very soon the nurses find that they cannot work in those conditions. Some of them leave; those who remain find the conditions intolerable, and they, too, leave. This is why there is this disproportion in the distribution of nurses, and why certain hospitals are fairly well staffed, while others are badly staffed. This is something which, clearly, we must watch.
We must keep a close watch on the extraordinary conditions in which nurses have to work. Last night I dined at the House of Commons with a guest, the daughter of a friend of mine, who until two days ago was a nurse at one of our London hospitals. She has left after three and a half years. She has worked on every Christmas Day for four years. In her three and a half years as a nurse she has never had a weekend off, save when she was ill or on holiday. Like many other nurses working in this city, she has been doing what, in another context, one would call moonlighting for almost the whole period of her service. She has been doing little bits of jobs, waiting in restaurants, cleaning taxis, and so on. At last she said to herself, "I shall do it no more." She will start again after a rest, when perhaps conditions have improved. But I wonder how many other girls are in that situation? How many girls have we lost to nursing because of the intolerable conditions? How many girls have we discouraged from taking up this very important career?
I come, now, to the arguments which are constantly used about why it is impossible to make changes. The Government have a responsibility here, and they and the Treasury must realise that this automatic argument about inflation, exports, and things of that kind does not apply to this kind of occupation. Nobody thinks that if nurses are given an immediate substantial rise they will go out and buy two cars, or in some way put a great strain on our export industries.

They will merely eat more, or perhaps wear better clothes, or perhaps stop moonlighting and doing other jobs which they have to do now to provide themselves with any kind of standard of living.
Those arguments do not apply. There is not the smallest reason—and I honestly believe that hon. Members of all parties accept this—why the Minister did not immediately pay nurses a proper salary and give them a proper career structure. If that were done, it would not have any effect on the economy. It would not lead to other consequential changes. The public would understand it, and there is no reason why it could not be done.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is possible that the Whitley Council has some confidential terms of reference which tie its hands behind its back when negotiating?

Dr. Winstanley: That may or may not be so. It is not for me to comment on what goes on in the negotiations, save that I comment on the fact that the negotiations have broken down. This is deplorable. They should be resumed.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Dr. John Dunwoody): This is the second time that the phrase "broken down" has been used, and I think that I should say now that there is no question of negotiations having broken down. Today's negotiations have been completed, and will be continued on 10th February. Negotiations are continuing.

Dr. Winstanley: I am delighted to hear that. I hope that before the end of the debate we shall hear even more in the same vein from the hon. Gentleman.
I know the hon. Gentleman's opinion. I know that he agrees with me. He knows what kind of work the nurses do, and what kind of responsibilities they have to bear. He knows the sacrifices which they make, and the sacrifices which, quite often, their families make.
The hon. Gentleman knows, too, that the automatic arguments which the Treasury trots out to deal with matters of this kind are wholly irrelevant, and there is not the smallest reason why he should not say here and now that the Government will do what is necessary to give nurses a proper wage and career structure which recognises the vast change which


has taken place in that occupation in recent years. There is no reason why the matter should not be settled here and now.

9.59 p.m.

Mr. S. O. Davies: I shall be as brief as my hon. Friends have been. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) for raising this extremely important matter, and for supporting his case with such overwhelming facts.
Last year, though the reason for it was not very serious, I had to spend a little time in one of our local hospitals. In my own life and in the experience of my family and relatives, the medical and nursing professions have been fairly prominent over the years, but what I heard when I succeeded in gaining the confidence of some of the most experienced sisters and nurses at that hospital really shocked me. I thought that the Government were either miserably ill-informed or equally miserably mean in a matter of this kind.
For example, I was told by a man whom I consider to be a first-class physician, "We will have that put right when you go home". He is a great personal friend of mine, and I asked him how it would be arranged. He said, "Sister So-and-so will call". I asked, "Why Sister So-and-so and not my medical attendant?" He did not then give me the proper answer to that question, but I soon found out. The nursing profession is almost the pillar of the medical profession.
What I learned during the time I spent in hospital and afterwards made me disgusted with myself that I had been so silent on this matter and so concerned about the well-being of people in industry. So, again, I give my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West.
I warn my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State that the Government had better be careful on this matter. I am speaking with some experience. I know of no other problem which can so easily reduce this or any other Government to contempt. It is a growing problem, and the public—I can speak for my constituents—have become more aware of the treatment meted out to nurses. I am certain that in time this will bring the Government down to sheer

contempt unless they do what is obviously needed to improve the conditions of employment in this essential service.
Why should the 22 per cent. increase be spread over two years? My hon. Friend has given figures which demonstrate that, if it were granted immediately, the increase in actual salary to the nurses would be miserable, having regard to their service.
I have told my friends in the medical profession that I consider that they have been mean themselves in not raising their voices far more strongly than they have in the interests of the nursing profession. I know from experience and from information given to me by others that the nursing profession is the pillar of a great deal of the medical profession.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State will give us a good reply. I do not envy him unless he is prepared to approach the question head-on, basing himself on his personal experience and saying what he thinks should be done. I hope that he will not be mean and that he will give us tonight information which will save the Government from being referred to contemptuously by all who know the conditions in which nurses work and who want them to have an immediate substantial improvement.

10.6 p.m.

Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson: I make no apology for repeating many of the arguments already heard in the debate, for it is necessary to emphasise that nursing has historically been a badly-paid profession. It sprang out of charity and the Poor Law, and only when Florence Nightingale gave it respectability, perhaps, was anyone prepared to treat it as the serious profession which it is.
It has been said that, in Florence Nightingale's day, the ladies who worked in the hospitals did not need the money, and the paupers who did were not worth it. It is that historical background—either ladies who did not need the money or paupers who were not worth it—which, I believe, has always made nursing a badly paid profession.
No Government can take much pride in the way that nurses have been treated in their salaries, but tonight something


could be done to give them a new deal and a new basis upon which their future pay and conditions could be placed.
In Florence Nightingale's day, and up to the last war, the limitations on what a lady should do were, perhaps, one of the reasons why so many women of private means who had a vocation went into nursing, for they were not necessarily concerned about the financial return which they would earn. A senior nurse told me only today that as a probationer at the Middlesex Hospital in the 19303 she was being paid £20 a year, and a staff nurse in the same hospital was paid £60 a year.
Before the war, nursing was primarily a women's profession, and as today when women still do not receive their fair share of wages, they were poorly paid. The unending stream of devoted women who were apparently always available to staff the hospitals, made many hospitals neglect the high wastage rate among those good people, is no longer there. No one can assume that, simply because they have a vocation, nurses will come forward if their pay and conditions are not comparable with pay and conditions in other work for which their talents would qualify them to do.
Before the war, I believe, the wage structure depended simply on what a hospital would pay. There was no national wage structure. Not until the Athlone Committee in 1939 was any suggestion put forward that nurses should have a say in the negotiations about what they were paid, and it was not until 1943, with the Rushcliffe Committee, that any attempt was made to lay down a limit on the hours a nurse should work during the week. I think that the suggestion then was that 96 hours represented a reasonable week's work.
The National Health Service changed all that. In 1948, the Whitley Council was set up to keep an eye on nurses' pay and conditions. But, when the Health Service was set up, nurses were not given the right basic pay. Consequently, they have never had it since then. Thus, they have always been among the worst-paid members of our society. I believe that, in 1948, a staff nurse earned about £200 a year, which cannot be described as a good salary for the job.
If that basic figure was wrong, as I believe it was, everything which has fol-

lowed has maintained a distortion in the return that a nurse gets for her work and the tremendous responsibility she carries. She is a highly-trained person working very long hours, many weekends and Christmas Days. She has tremendous responsibility amounting to a question of life and death, and there is a very unlovely side to her work which many of us would dislike doing.
Nursing is a vocation: we cannot imagine anyone wanting to do it without that feeling. But this is no reason why those who want to help humanity should be penalised, as nurses have been for far too long. It is the failure of successive Governments to appreciate the work which nurses do, and the fact that their wages have been out of line virtually always, which has meant that nurses have gradually begun to feel a genuine grievance. This has created today a disgruntled profession.
I have received so many petitions from the hospitals in my constituency that I should be failing in my duty if I did not make their voices heard. The "raise the roof" campaign of the nurses is the right way to focus attention on their genuine grievance. I hope that the Under-Secretary, who is also a physician, will be able to show more sympathy to what the nurses want than has been given hitherto. He has a real chance to make a start and correct the nurses' basic level now, so that future increases will continue to give them the right level of remuneration for this onerous job.
After all, a nurse has to be a person of high calibre, the same sort of person who could pick up a job at £1,000 a year with no difficulty. Only recently, I took on a new secretary, aged 20, who would not look at the job under £1,000 a year, yet what training has she had, what responsibility does she carry, compared with a nurse? Also, she will have every weekend and her evenings free. She will not work extraordinary hours or have the sheer hard physical labour which goes into nursing.
The nurse of today is not being paid enough, and it comes down to a question of our priorities. It has been said that when one is ill and in hospital the nurse is worth her weight in gold, but that when one is well, one forgets that she ever existed. I hope that the Government will


not forget that she exists, but will reconsider this award. Of course, a 22 per cent. award is nice to hear about, but why does it have to be split in this way? What we are really debating is a 15 per cent. award. Instead of two instalments it should be paid in one here and now. Better even than that, I suggest that the Government reconsider what the staff side of the Whitley Council asked for rather than what their representatives feel that they could dole out.
With this rise in pay a ward sister, having had many years' training, will get £1,095, while, as I have said, a secretary aged 19 or 20 can today get £1,000, with virtually no training. A highly skilled ward sister, who will probably be 26 or 27 years old, will receive just over £1,000. We should not forget that 20 per cent. of our nurses are male, with the result that I may be speaking of a married man aged 26 or 27 with a couple of children. Nobody would pretend that £1,095 is much of a salary for him.
A ward sister is responsible for the total administration of a ward, dealing with consultants and relatives, training student nurses and handling valuable equipment. Her responsibility adds up to deciding perhaps whether someone should be resuscitated. It is a question of life and death, yet we consider that such a person is worth no more than £1,095 a year. When the staff side of the Whitley Council asked for £1,400 a year for a ward sister it did not place her salary at a high enough level. I hope, therefore, that the Minister will give a reassurance that the Government will think again on this issue.
As the hon. Member for Fife, West said, to talk about 22 per cent.—or 40 per cent. as the staff side sought—may seem fantastic, but the percentage is insignificant. It is the take-home salary that matters and it still seems to be pitifully small. This is a penny-pinching approach to a real problem of priorities. We must go on attracting nurses to our hospitals, including male nurses, and we must make them realise that their vocation will be properly rewarded because we appreciate the tremendous service they give.
In considering the question of nurses pay, we must not forget those higher up

the scale. The recent rise has shown, if it comes about, that the Government want to do something, but I suggest that what has been proposed is wretchedly insignificant compared with what should be proposed. We are now getting into a dangerous imbalance in the nursing profession. Matrons, assistant matrons and nursing tutors are not getting sufficiently high salaries compared with what is being paid lower down the scale.
A 15 per cent. increase this year means that a chief nursing officer, who is responsible for several hospitals, could be earning up to £3,927 a year. She has enoromous responsibility, and there are not many of these people. An ordinary matron with a 500-bed hospital will still be earning less than £2,000 a year, but her responsibility is enormous. We must, therefore, consider whether we can do something to get the whole structure and scale of nursing on the right basis.
I understand that a nurse can retire from the profession at the age of 55 and will receive a pension. If she then decides to return to nursing she will be paid only her pension plus a percentage of wage to bring her total up to what she was earning when she retired. This is an obvious disincentive to a highly skilled nurse to return to the profession, remembering that if she goes into, for example, the hotel industry she will draw a pension and a full salary. Therefore, I ask the Under-Secretary: are we so well off for nurses that we do not need some incentive to be given to encourage older people to come back to nursing when they probably have another 10 years of active service which they can give to hospitals?
Why cannot the Government implement the whole of the award this April? Why cannot they give the nurses what they have asked for rather than what the Government think they should have? Are the Government to suggest that £1,400 a year is too low a salary for a ward sister? Could the Government look at the whole structure of the nursing profession to make sure that those carrying the greatest responsibility get much higher rewards than they have at present so that the whole structure has an incentive about it and fair play for all?

Mr. Speaker: I remind the House, with the coldness which is part of my duty in


the Chair, that this is the fifth of 25 debates we shall have during the night and early morning. Reasonably brief speeches will help.

10.21 p.m.

Dame Irene Ward: I will, of course, fall in with your very wise Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but if Ministers had dealt with all the problems, particularly the nurses' problem which has been so admirably outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson), we would not need to have this debate at all. That would have alleviated the tremendous strain which is put on the whole House of Commons, particularly the officials and the police, and we would have more justice than we have at present.
I am sorry that I was not present at the beginning of this debate but it is extremely difficult to know when individual debates are to come on. Although I have no intention of developing the argument, I could not resist putting in my word because for a very long time I have done everything I could to support the nurses' claim. If they are worth the 22 per cent. increase which the Minister of State is very pleased about, they must be worth that 22 per cent. increase now. Why have they to wait until next year? I suspect that the Government have not got the money to pay them, or else they are working on the honour and vocational attitude of nurses because they know that they are not likely to make as much funs as some other sections of the community would make.
I want to know exactly why this is. I am sure the Ministers concerned are pleased at the final result, but I do not know any more than my hon. Friend knows what has gone on behind the scenes. It may be that the Secretary of State, the Under-Secretaries or the Ministers of State, or the whole caboodle, have argued for the 22 per cent. to be paid now. I could not get at that this afternoon when I had a go at the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not know whether the block comes from the Chancellor. I cannot believe that it comes from the Department of Health and Social Security for I imagine that those who rule the destinies of nurses in that Department must know that they are being very mean to fragment the award.
I should like to see a few more Ministers being a little more independent instead of being so pleased that this is making the Chancellor feel uncomfortable. I should love to argue with the Chancellor, but I cannot do so. I think it perfectly ridiculous for Ministers to go on saying how much they want this done for the nurses and physiotherapists, in whom I am also interested, and teachers, while at the same time they instruct those on the management committee that they can go only so far in negotiations because Ministers have to kow-tow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That is why the whole thing is a farce.
I should like proper negotiations on a proper basis so that we could know the truth. We do not know the truth. I do not know what has gone on behind the scenes. It has taken a long time for the nurses to make an impact. If the Minister wants to do justice and to shorten the debate, so that we can get on to debate other injustices which need remedying, he should say that he will go back to the Chancellor and ask him to say that at least the whole 22 per cent. will be paid on 1st April.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. Maurice Macmillan: I wish to declare an interest in a technical sense, even if a slightly remote one. I am the publisher of the Nursing Times, which has campaigned in this cause. It is for that reason that I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) and the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) have raised this subject—because of its importance to the structure and the future of the Health Service as well as in common justice to the nurses who serve it so loyally and devotedly.
I echo the tribute paid by the hon. Gentleman to the devotion of the nurses. All hon. Members would give unstinting praise to the courageous and self-sacrificing service of nurses. I hope that the Government realise the importance of this, and that the country and the nurses will recognise that this is a matter which has been raised and supported by all the three political parties with a degree of unanimity seldom seen in the Chamber.
The Joint Under-Secretary intervened and said that negotiations had not broken down but were to be resumed in a fortnight. I am glad to hear that. I get the impression, as do others, that there has been some hitch—that was my impression on listening to the news on the wireless—and that the points of dispute were relatively small.
The first point of difference is that the total involved in any disparity between the claim of the profession and what the management side is offering is the difference between £80 million and £65½ million—that is, about £14½ million, a derisory sum in this context. The second point of difference is the question of the whole 22 per cent. being paid in April, 1970, or split as to 15 per cent. now and 7 per cent. later. Other points of difference are, for example, the question of there being no fresh claim before February, 1972, and the question of the 84-hour fortnight, both of which are causing difficulty.
I ask the Joint Under-Secretary to tell the House whether that judgment of what has happened is more or less correct. If it is, and if there is any doubt or difficulty about the nurses' claim, how much is this due to the fact that 22½ per cent. or 22 per cent., whatever be the exact figure, seems a very large percentage in the context of the norm which the Government have imposed on themselves but which they have singularly failed to keep in all cases of trades and professions which are able to put on pressure by strike action, which the nurses are not? To what extent does the difficulty arise because it is relatively easier to hold down claims such as this one rather than because the claim represents too much in absolute as opposed to percentage terms?
I gather that part of the claim of the staff side was that a staff nurse—that is, a fully qualified nurse on first taking up a staff appointment, a key position, in any hospital—should start at £1,000 a year and that a chief nursing officer should rise to £4,500 a year. The question is: to what extent is it the Government's policy that is causing the difficulty, and to what extent is it the demand of the nurses for a little jam as well as the prospect of some jam tomorrow?
The percentage, for what it is worth, starts on a pretty low base. About 80 per cent. of the total nursing professional employees of the N.H.S. receive wages and salaries below the national average —that is, on the assumption that the ward sister earns the national average or above, and that is certainly not true at the moment. So 80 per cent. on that rather generous assumption are below the national average.
The right hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) referred to the position of student nurses. Although, as the Secretary of State said some time ago, they are paid not a wage but a training allowance, they are used as labourers and not as students. The only additional point I want to make now—we have raised this before—it that any future settlement must decide whether student nurses are cheap labour or students. If they are going to be used as labour, they should be paid as such. This point has caused a great deal of difficulty.
At the moment, the maximum on the scales which can be earned in the nursing profession as a top chief nursing officer or matron in charge of a large group of hospitals is £2,950. The latest offer would raise this to £3,927 a year. The profession would like a further £573, making it £4,500. This is only barely commensurate with what can be earned by women in jobs of comparable responsibility and importance elsewhere.
A staff nurse can earn from £785 up to £985 as of now. The new offer would make this scale from £945 to £1,197. But even if the nurses' claim of a starting base of £1,000 a year and equivalent increases after three years were fully met, a fully qualified staff nurse after three years would barely reach the present national average, let alone what that average will be in three years' time.
Assuming, as the Secretary of State did recently in the case of pensions, a national average of about £24 a week, a ward sister does not now reach that level for about seven years, an deven the new offer will bring his or her salary only up to the national average after about two years. The maximum will remain extremely low.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) and others have referred to the concertina effect of the present structure and


the need to raise the differential, not only to increase the earnings of a staff nurse on first qualification but also to broaden the whole range of salary structure right through from the sister-tutors to the top level of all.
There is an increasing need to improve the career structure in other ways, although I am not blaming the Under-Secretary or the Department for any failures in those spheres, because so much of the need for improvement derives from relatively recent changes in the needs and demands made on the profession. There is a great need for nurses to be able to continue to earn increasing salaries in nursing, without being promoted into administration. There is a tendency for a fairly low block on the salary rise while they are doing a full-time nursing job, in contact with patients.
There is also a great need to consider the new managerial and technical skills required in nursing, such as those of not only the chief nursing officer but the theatre superintendent, in a large 800 bedroom hospital, as well as the earnings and relative status of sister tutors who can get equivalent jobs outside the Health Service for higher remuneration. It is not difficult to see that the problem is that the £80 million extra required, at the minimum, for increases in nurses' salaries must, under the present system, come virtually entirely from taxation. It is perhaps a little ironic that we have a shortage of nurses.
If we paid a market price we might find that shortage remedied. We will not be able to continue getting either the number or the standard required if we continue to try to pay nurses on the cheap. I would like the Minister to refer to some of the other false economies, in connection with the nursing profession, which are practised in the Health Service. How many hospitals, for example, are being held below their proper establishment of nurses for the sake of economy? To what extent are hospital authorities taking on, in emergencies, agency nurses at a considerably higher total cost to the taxpayer? We have heard that there is to be an intensified situation, with modern conditions and practices, making more and more demands on the nurse, and increasing the strain on her.

Mr. Spriggs: Can the hon. Gentleman assure the House that agency nurses who are supplied to hospitals receive more remuneration than other nurses?

Mr. Macmillan: I understand that the fee that would have to be paid to the agency results in a greater cost to the hospital authority employing agency nurses than the equivalent salary of normal nurses who would otherwise be employed. In other words, the nurses get their salary from the agency, and anyone using the agency pays the agency. This costs more. Despite all the demands that have been made from both sides of the House on behalf of the nurses for improvements, not only in salary but career structure and conditions—there is a great deal to be done here, and always will be—we should expect the Under-Secretary to admit that the real problem is how to get more money into nursing.
This is part of the wider problem of how to get more money into the Health Service. I would be out of order if I pursued that, and the Minister would be out of order in following me, but I hope that he will admit that the nub of this problem of pay and conditions of the nursing profession within the Health Service is the same as the problem besetting the Health Service—particularly the hospital service—throughout its structure, a shortage of money and resources which we must overcome if we are to do justice to the people who work in the Health Service and continue to provide the service required, rightly, by our people.

10.40 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Security (Dr. John Dunwoody): In raising the subject of nurses' pay my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) and the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Michael McNair-Wilson) have raised an issue of very considerable importance. It is also the most topical issue of the 25 debates before us tonight.
Before trying to answer the points that have been raised I would like to make some general comments and deal with the position as I see it at the moment. As hon. Members will know, the pay and conditions of nurses employed in the National Health Service are determined


not by Secretaries of State, but by a process of negotiation between the two sides of the Nurses and Midwives Whitley Council; the management side representing the Departments, hospital management and, let us not forget, local authorities as well, and the staff side, comprising professional organisations and unions representing all the grades of staff concerned.
As I have said in the House on a previous occasion, there is no suggestion that the negotiation of salaries on the Whitley Council relieves the Health Ministers of all responsibility for nurses' pay. Representatives of the three Health Departments, my own Department and the Welsh and Scottish Offices, serve on the management side and play their full part in negotiation. When any of the National Health Service Whitley Councils has reached an agreement the statutory approval of the Secretary of State is required before it is put into operation.
The Whitley Council still has under negotiation the staff side's recent claim and the offer made by the management side. The council has, in fact, been meeting today, the negotiations are continuing and the next meeting will take place on 10th February. While this certainly adds to the topicality of the subject, it makes it difficult for me to comment since it would be quite wrong for me to appear to prejudge the outcome of these vitally important negotiations or to prejudice them in any way.
Hon. Members will recall that the current salary scales for nurses flow from recommendations of the National Board for Prices and Incomes. The board carried out a comprehensive review from July, 1967, to March, 1968, and as a result of its recommendations and the subsequent negotiations in the Whitley Council, nurses received further increases of between 9 per cent. and 14 per cent. The latter increases were paid in two stages, the first stage being paid from 1st October, 1967; the second from 1st January, 1969.
With other major improvements, including improved and extended special duty payments for night and weekend work—a very demanding part of the nurses' occupation—an increase to £100 in the lead paid to staff in mental hospitals and the introduction of a similar

lead—I think that this is important—for staff of geriatric and chronic sick hospitals, the total estimated cost of the board's main proposals on pay and conditions of service was over £37 million a year. The board recommended that this comprehensive settlement should run until 31st March, 1970, and the Whitley Council is now engaged on a review in readiness for a new settlement to operate from 1st April, 1970.
At the time of the last settlement both the National Board for Prices and Incomes and the Government recognised that exceptional treatment for nurses was called for within the terms of current incomes policy. While it is always possible to criticise pay agreements, a major settlement costing over £37 million a year was a definite and major step forward.
The staff side have now submitted a major claim for very large increases for all nursing staff and for new scales for the senior grades in the new nursing management structure which is being introduced following the recommendations of the Salmon Committee.
At the meeting of the Whitley Council on 13th January the management side made a substantial offer; indeed, it was by far the largest offer made in the history of the Whitley Council. The offer was for a two year settlement with new rates of pay to operate from 1st April, 1970, giving an overall increase of nearly 15 per cent. and a further set of scales to operate from 1st April, 1971, giving further increases averaging rather more than 7 per cent. In addition, the management side made an offer of salary scales for the new chief nursing officer posts in the new nursing management structure for which there have hitherto been no negotiated salary scales.
The management side, in making the offer, and the Government, in endorsing it as being consistent with incomes policy, both clearly recognised that nurses' pay was a very special case justifying exceptional increases beyond the normal range of 2½ to 4½ per cent. The White Paper on Productivity, Prices and Incomes contains ample provision for dealing with exceptional cases requiring special action. Many nurses are low-paid workers by any standards. Quite apart from this, there is a strong case for special treatment on recruitment grounds.
Nursing is subject to onerous requirements not found in the generality of occupations—working at night and weekends. Some of us will be working all night here, but none of us work the amount of night work many quite young nurses have to work. Their work is often undertaken under exacting conditions, with human lives at stake and subject to the continually increasing demands of modern technology. There is the unique combination of increasing technological demands in an occupation which also makes physical demands and involves work which, as one of my hon. Friends said, many people would find offensive and repugnant.
Present rates of pay are quite inadequate to maintain recruitment in these circumstances, and increases well above the normal range are necessary for the purpose. The White Paper specifically mentions future recruitment in skilled occupations as a relevant factor.
It would be quite unjustifiable for other workers to try to justify percentage claims of a similar size by reference to the offer to nurses. The nurses' case is quite exceptional. The Government recognise that the pay issue is not everything and are considering what further measures can be taken to clarify the rôle and function of nurses in the Health Service and improve their recruitment and deployment.
There is one feature of the offer to which I would like to draw attention. It is the proposal that, for student nurses in general hospitals, pay should be related to age from 18 to 21 with two further increments for the second and third year for those starting at age 21 or over. This is a major improvement and brings the pattern of student nurses' pay in general hospitals into line with that in psychiatric hospitals. Previously, there was a difference between student nurses under 25 and those over 25, with two different rates being paid.

Mr. Spriggs: May we have some information about these proposals?

Dr. Dunwoody: I will go on to tell the House what is the effect of the proposals. However, before I do that, I should remind hon. Members that this not only brings nurses into line with those

in psychiatric hospitals but provides this important difference of improvement for girls between 21 and 25. Student nurses in psychiatric hospitals, of course, will continue to retain their "mental lead".
The effect of this proposal would mean that a student nurse joining at 19 would receive £540 from April, 1970, and £567 from April, 1971, instead of the present figure of £395 plus £48 meals allowance. I think this proposal is important because it could be very helpful in attracting to nursing those girls who, having started in some other occupation first, think of training as a nurse at the age of 19 or 20 but might have been deterred in years past by having to drop to the 18-year old rate of training allowance.
As I have said, the offer was for a two year settlement, and there has been considerable pressure, supported by some hon. Members, for a one year settlement giving the rates proposed for 1971 in 1970. To some extent, this may have been based on a misunderstanding of the nature of the offer. Under previous phases of incomes policy, it has been a requirement that, if an increase of more than a certain size was agreed to be necessary, it should be staged, only part being paid immediately and the balance a year later.
The offer on nurses' pay is not a case of staging in this sense. It would have been possible to have made an offer for a single year only, but this would necessarily have been lower than that which has been made. By making an offer for two years, the management side of the Whitley Council was able not only to propose substantial increases for this year but a further sizeable increase next year, thus giving some assurance for the future. This is important. We do not want to look at this on just a year-to-year basis.
Turning to some of the important points raised in the debate, although it will not be possible to answer them all, in introducing the subject my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West made the very important point that this takes us further than just the question of nurses' pay. He talked about the morale amongst nurses and the importance of developing a career structure. This is a matter to which the Government are alive, and I would not altogether agree with my


hon. Friend when he says that the implementation of the Salmon reorganisation is going slowly.
As I travel around I find that it is being implemented increasingly rapidly throughout the country. But I agree when my hon. Friend underlines the rôle that administrative reorganisation may be able to play. Here, I must ask him to wait for the second Green Paper which will be published shortly. This, again, will help us to see the future of the nursing profession more clearly in the same way as it will in other parts of the Health Service.
I fully accept that the salary structure —I am not just talking about the pay levels—needs to be reformed to remove anomalies in the traditional pay structure —anomalies that were mentioned by other hon. Members as well during the debate—and to provide agreed salary scales for the new pattern of nursing management which is being introduced throughout the hospital service. The need for such a reform is reflected both in the staff side's claim and the management side's counter proposals. Beyond this I do not think that I can comment at this juncture, when so much needs to be discussed by the negotiating body.
A similar reform of the structure of nursing management in the local authority nursing services has recently been recommended by a joint working party of the local authority associations and the Health Departments. For this to be implemented there will need to be a new salary structure appropriate to the new form of organisation.
My hon. Friend has already touched on the status of the nursing profession. Status is partly a question of public esteem. There is not the slightest doubt about the high regard in which the nursing profession is held in the country. Indeed, the way that the debate has gone tonight is one indication. But status is also partly reflected in pay, and the rates of pay now being offered make their contribution. Certainly, the rates of pay proposed by the management side for the chief nursing officers place them high in the hierarchy of principal officers of hospital authorities.
It is important that nurses should play their full part in the management of the

hospital services. This has not only been acknowledged, but repeatedly stressed by my right hon. Friend and his predecessor. Under the traditional pattern of nursing administration, this was often difficult to achieve, particularly in those groups which had more than one hospital and where there was no single head of nursing services. The new nursing management structures recommended by the Salmon Committee do much to remedy this by the appointment of a single head of nursing services and by providing a proper management structure.
At first sight, this management structure may be divorced from the care at the bedside, which is the more traditional aspect of a nurse's work. The hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. Maurice Macmillan) implied this to a certain extent when he made the distinction between the administrative rôle of the more senior nurses and the day-to-day more traditional work of other nurses. But effective management, with good two-way communication between the senior and junior nurses, is an essential factor in improving the lot of the ordinary nurse, and it can have an important bearing on the standards of patient care as well.
I am well aware that pay and management are not the only factors which need to be tackled. I appreciate that nurses have other grievances, some of which have been touched on during the debate. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) talked about the other duties that nurses sometimes have to perform. This is an example. The hon. Member for Cheadle (Dr. Winstanley) talked about the technical skills which are increasingly demanded of nurses.
My right hon. Friend is considering what other action might be called for to improve the nursing situation. I will certainly draw his attention to all the points which have been made in the debate.
I must take up one point made by the hon. Member for Edgbaston. The hon. Lady referred to the management side's offer of a 22 per cent. increase staged over two years, costing about £65 million, as a shrivelled cherry. In my view, this is a luscious, ripe fruit compared with anything which came from her right hon. and hon. Friends when they were in a


position to do something to solve what admittedly we all realise is a long-standing problem, because when they were in power all that the nurses got was the pip.
I have listened with great interest to all the various points that have been made throughout the debate, but important negotiations are still proceeding and

it would not be appropriate for me to comment further just now. I hope, nevertheless, that what I have said will have helped to explain the background to the current negotiations and it will have helped to convey the Government's understanding of the need for unusual measures to deal with unusual problems.

HEATHROW AIRPORT (SAFETY STANDARDS)

10.55 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I do not want to detain the House for long. I shall not indulge in electioneering. I wish simply to draw attention to four matters concerning the standards of safety prevailing at London Airport Heathrow, which seem to be both topical and matters of public concern.
I am grateful to the Minister of State, Board of Trade, for coming here at this relatively late hour to answer the debate. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) for coming to listen to it. I am sorry that something has prevented the hon. Member for Orpington (Mr. Lubbock) from attending, because I think that these are all points in which he might find an interest.
I propose to deal, first, with the consequences of the unfortunate and tragic accident last year to the B.O.A.C. 707, "Whisky Echo", which crashed at Heathrow shortly after take off, having lost an engine and suffered a mid-air fire. It was carrying 116 passengers and 10 crew, of whom four passengers and one crew member were killed. The House will, I am sure, remember Miss Harrison, the B.O.A.C. air stewardess, whose great heroism has so properly been rewarded by the highest possible honour which this country can bestow upon a civilian.
The report of the Chief Inspector of Accidents into this accident which was published in April of last year, and which I have read with some care, raises a number of very disturbing questions, not all of which have been fully answered. The ones on which I wish to concentrate are those which concern the criticisms of the organisation, deployment, and state of readiness of the airport fire services, and the general situation which was revealed as prevailing by this tragic occurrence.
I need not go through them in detail, but I am sure that the Minister will agree that on looking at pages 9 and 10 of the inspector's report one's eye falls on a series of unfortunate mistakes. There is the fact that the hose-laying vehicle was not as readily available as it

should have been—there was only one on the airport in any case. The London Fire Brigade was not alerted as soon as it should have been. The foam appliances which went to the fire halted too far from the burning aircraft to be of maximum effectiveness. There was delay in getting the hydrant system working. For a variety of reasons the fighting of the fire was very much less efficient than it should have been. Although the tentative conclusion of the inspector appears to be that no lives were necessarily lost as a result of these failures, I am not wholly satisfied that we can reach that conclusion.
However, what I want to hear from the Minister is what action has been taken on the recommendations of the fire and rescue service working group, which are printed in this report, and particularly and especially on recommendation 11.11 which appears on page 54. It is that
A broadly based working party, including members from Home Office, Fire Service Department, local authorities, Board of Trade and British Airports Authority should be formed to study and report on the problems of aircraft fire and rescue operations. Their terms of reference should include liaison between airports and local authorities, the siting of fire stations, manning (including command structure), fire and rescue equipment, media scales, the training of firemen and the scale of ambulance cover.
The report shows that a situation in which only 14 two-stretcher ambulances are available within 15 minutes of Heathrow in case of major accident is a matter of particular significance now when larger and larger aircraft are starting to come into the airport. A situation in which, apparently, only 28 stretcher cases can be provided for in conditions of acute haste and emergency ought not still to prevail, and there ought to have been considerable improvements. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us about that.
It is in the nature of a major international airport that from time to time there will be accidents. They may not all be of great seriousness. Of the 118 full emergency stand-bys which the Report and Accounts for 1968–69 of the British Airports Authority tells us there were in that year, only three involved aircraft accidents with resulting fire. Nevertheless, accidents involving fire have to be tackled.
It is a matter of some comfort, perhaps, that when an aircraft has to return in circumstances of some emergency, but is still able to circle and dump fuel and make landing half an hour or more after the original detection of the emergency, all the services are there in readiness for possible accident. But what really matters is that all the services are there in readiness for the accident without warning, the accident at or shortly after take-off or touch-down. I hope that we shall be given reassurance about that.
I come now to what I can only describe a.; the remarkable story of the B.E.A. Trident "Papa Sierra"—the abbreviation for its registration number which some of us will recognise as G-ARPS. It was lost by fire at Heathrow one day last autumn in circumstances which I have never seen fully reported in the Press. I have pieced the story together from various inquiries from various sources, so I may not have it entirely accurate.
I understand that this Trident was on the tarmac waiting to take the early morning service to Belfast, and, shortly before the crew went out to man it, it was seen to be on fire. The airport fire service attended and put out the fire, after, I am told—I cannot vouch for it—some confusion resulting from an attempt to starve the fire of air although it turned out that the cause of the fire was located close to a substantial supply of oxygen. Eventually, the fire was extinguished by the use of foam.
For some reason or other, there was then no access allowed or made to the aircraft for at least 48 hours, and the foam was not finally removed from the airframe until at least a week after the original incident. It then became apparent that the chemical reaction had been such that there had been substantial corrosion of the airframe, with the result that in the long term the airframe has been declared utterly unserviceable, and the aircraft is a write-off, although a good deal of the equipment, I understand, has been salvaged from it. The gutted hull is to be seen, I believe, at London Airport.
This case raises some major points. In ascending order of importance, I put them as follows. First, there are the tech-

nical aspects of the chemistry. I do not know whether it was known that this consequence was probable. I infer that it was not, although I understand that it has now come to light that something similar happened to a Caravelle not so long ago. There seems to have been a breakdown of exchange of knowledge between the party owning that aircraft and B.E.A.
Second, there is the question of the efficiency of the airport fire brigade. Although this emergency involved no risk to life, I cannot say whether the brigade was as prompt and efficient as it could have been. But much the most important point is the security matter. The fire was undoubtedly caused by an incendiary device deliberately placed in the aircraft. Although there is a possibility, which it would be difficult to dismiss, that this might have been an act of sabotage, I understand that inquiries show that it was probably an act of arson.
Whichever it was, this sort of thing should not be allowed to happen again. It was probably arson, although I understand that no charges have been laid, but I would like to know whether there has been any tightening up of the security of the airline or of the airport authority which will minimise the possibility of this kind of thing happening again. I need hardly stress the consequences of this happening if it were not discovered until after the aircraft had taken off, fully loaded.
I suggest that the Minister would also be well advised to consider the physical difficulties of imposing security at Heathrow, and whether it is desirable that there should be, as there appears to be, a fairly constant flow of utterly unauthorised traffic around the inner perimeter of the airfield, which I understand to be a favourite short cut of people travelling between Hayes and Feltham. Perhaps so many people take advantage of this short cut that if an attempt were made to control the traffic the whole airport would be brought to a standstill, but the Minister might investigate re-routing the perimeter road pattern so that the short cut was not so much of an advantage.
There are some questions here which the Minister may not be able to answer at all tonight, but I hope that he will


assure us that the points which I have raised will be considered. They do have some substance.
My third point concerns the Northolt air miss, the near-collision on 9th January this year between an Indian Constellation seeking to land at R.A.F. Northolt, and an Olympia Airways Boeing 727 approaching Heathrow, in circumstances fairly familiar to the House. We know, from Questions which the Minister answered on 20th and 21st of this month, that an inquiry into this incident is in progress. We shall await its results with great interest. After reading what he has already said in his Answers, particularly that on 21st January, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman can tell us something positive tonight.
The right hon. Gentleman told the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), whom I am glad to see here tonight, that the cause of the air miss was that the Constellation had been told by G.C.A. Northolt to climb and turn left because it was at a height and on a bearing which threatened to cause it to hit Harrow Hill, and that the consequence of this sudden instruction, which the pilot obeyed, was that it came very close to the Boeing. It entered the airspace of Heathrow control and the controller at Heathrow was notified by the Northolt controller that this was happening. However, there appears to have been no time for anybody to tell the captain of the Boeing.
I do not know the technical reason why this happened, but it must be undesirable for aircraft suddenly to be routed into conditions which cause an obvious risk of collision without the captains of the aircraft being warned. These details will no doubt come out at the inquiry and, for this reason, I do not expect the Minister to answer this question here and now.
However I do expect him to answer my next question, for the hon. Gentleman said in that Parliamentary Answer that he was considering with the Secretary of State for Defence whether any additional safeguards might be taken to avoid a similar occurrence. He has had only six days in which to do that, but I suggest that that should have been long enough. If there are ways to avoid a possible re-

currence, I trust that they have been adopted.
Finally, I come to an odd report which appeared in the Daily Telegraph of 24th January last. Headed
Pilots' Secret Tests To Control Noise
it read:
A group of pilots, employed by several major airlines, have carried out secret tests during take-offs of scheduled service flights to find ways of cutting down unnecessary noise around Heathrow Airport… Mr. Geoffrey Holmes, representative of Windsor Council …said the pilots, whose employers did not even know about the tests, … wanted to remain anonymous… The pilots had tried to show that by changing take-off procedure to climb as quickly as possible the noise effect could be minimised for many people.
Any hon. Member who has constituents living near London Airport will agree that if it can be safely achieved the minimising of noise is a desirable objective. But when I read that report my immediate reaction was to say, "Mr. Holmes had better be joking", for if it is true it is disturbing, to say the least. The implication is that pilots are prepared to disregard the standing instructions given to them by the airlines and air traffic control for a purpose other than an emergency. Frankly, I do not believe that this is happening.
There are a large number of pilots in my constituency. They are responsible men and I believe it unlikely that they would place their aircraft in parts of the sky where nobody expects them to be, not only because they would be hazarding their own lives but because of possible danger to their passengers. Mr. Holmes should know this. After all, he is the Chief Public Health Inspector for Windsor. Does he want a major aircraft accident in his back yard? I regard it as the most astonishing statement that I have seen on this subject for some time and I trust that the Minister has looked into the matter and has satisfied himself that what is alleged is not true. I appreciate that he may find it difficult to disprove the statement, particularly as he and I have been in correspondence on the subject for some time.
On 13th January the hon. Gentleman wrote to me in answer to some questions I had put to him in connection with checks on altitudes following take-off at Heathrow. He wrote:
I confirm that air traffic control relies on reports from pilots for information about the


altitude of their aircraft to determine whether they are complying with the instructions issued to them in this respect. This is common practice internationally and, of course, the knowledge that the safety of the aircraft and its occupants depends on compliance and accurate height reporting is a powerful discipline on the pilot and crew.
I agree, and so it should be. But to find it suggested by a public employee that for reasons of experiment in connection with minimising noise the sort of action described in the article has been taken, is disturbing, to say the least. I would rather not believe it. If the Minister has not yet been able to look into the matter, I trust that he will give an assurance that he intends to do so.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. John Rankin: The whole House is indebted to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for raising this debate. I feel personally indebted to him because I have had a great deal of flying from London Airport to Glasgow and during these last 22 years when I have flown over the country I have seen one or two things and been in slight danger on one or two occasions.
One of the shocks I got was on one occasion, coming into London Airport. I happened to glance out of the window —we were under control at that point—and suddenly the tip of the wing of an aircraft appeared almost at my nose. I got an enormous fright, but I was able to attract the attention of a colleague who also witnessed briefly what I saw.
When I arrived at the House that morning—I think that it was in the last year of the Conservative Government's reign in this place—I reported the incident at once. The Minister of Civil Aviation, as he then was, had, of course, to pay attention to such an incident. It was evidently traced back to the fact that at the time control of all aircraft moving out and in at London was under the military stationed at Northolt. Consequently, no report could come to the House and we heard nothing despite all the pressure which was applied to get some sort of information.
I believe that the outcome, in practice, was that control was separated and civil aircraft the first time came under the civil authority while military movements remained with the military authority, which was a very unsatisfactory situation.

To my mind, there has always been a feeling of dissatisfaction and a slight lack of confidence, as a result of that event, because one feels, particularly in fog, that one is never quite sure that something may not happen. Confidence is affected. Yet when one sees what is happening generally it cannot be affecting the confidence of most people for the simple reason that the number of travelling passengers, despite incidents like the one I have mentioned and the accidents and incidents to which the hon. Member referred still occurring, is growing.
This is the encouraging feature of the development which has occurred in the aircraft now using London Airport and other British airports. During the years over which I have been using the service we have passed from the D.H. Rapide to the Trident, from an aircraft that travelled at about 90 miles an hour to one that travels at 600 miles an hour. We are on the verge of using regularly, perhaps every day, aircraft that will be carrying, not seven or eight people as we started with about 22 years ago, but 300. Can we visualise an aircraft accident with such a plane, involving 300 human beings and the almost certain result that there will be very few survivors?
While we are in this stage of development as to speed, I wonder how near we will get to ensure complete safety, which is the important thing. I am not denying that much has been done to ensure safety. It is difficult to reconcile what seems to be the slow pace at which we are moving in passenger safety with the enormous development in the design of aircraft which has occurred; far beyond anything we imagined when we were flying the earliest versions of our civil aircraft. The size of the aircraft is now such that few of us visioned 15 years ago.
I have mentioned speed. Three and a quarter hours used to be the accepted time for the journey between London and Glasgow. It is now 54 minutes. The amount of knowledge bound up in these developments pays a tremendous tribute to the research which has been conducted. None of us ever visioned when we started flying the comfort that would go with present-day flying. There is also the expert handling of these huge aircraft while moving at such speeds.
While we show that development and application of knowledge in all those directions, on the ground there is one person talking at the same time to two aircraft using London Airport, one going out, one coming in, with the result that time and time again, though not always, their paths must cross at some point. Of course, they are under control and there should be no contact. But accidents can happen, and they have been happening. I wonder whether more up-to-date methods of directing aircraft when taking off or landing can be developed.
Accidents happen in the most unexpected places and at the most unexpected times. One might think it impossible for an aircraft to fly into another aircraft at 12 o'clock on a beautiful spring day with not a cloud in the sky. Yet a civil aircraft, full of passengers, on a flight from London to Glasgow on a Saturday afternoon, some year ago, flew in to a small Auster proceeding at right angles to its path. That was always a mystery. Neither pilot evidently saw the other. We wonder how that can happen. But it did happen, and every passenger on the Glasgow-bound aircraft and the two passengers in the Auster lost their lives.
We want to be sure that that sort of accident could not happen today. I do not think that it could happen now because air paths are more strictly controlled. But as the last few days have shown, and as my hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Woking said, a similar near accident happened near London Airport, although I believe it was closer to Luton Airport.
I am sure that what has been said and what will perhaps be said later will receive the close attention of my hon. Friend the Minister of State. He will ensure that there is careful and serious inquiry into these events and in due course will assure us that safety precautions at our airports have been made more stringent.

11.28 p.m.

Sir Charles Mott-Radclyffe: I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) that the House is indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for raising this very important subject.
With the great increase in the volume of aircraft traffic every year, which is

inevitable, the safety factor obviously is paramount, and not only to the large number of passengers who take off and land every day and night at Heathrow, Gatwick, Glasgow and other airports in the United Kingdom. What is sometimes forgotten—I am not suggesting that the Minister of State or his Department have forgotten it—is that the safety of aircraft while taking off and landing affects not only the passengers, but the very large number of residents in the areas close to the various airports.
I speak feelingly because my constituency is one of those adjacent to Heathrow. In an aircraft accident, the number of people killed on the ground can easily be treble the number killed in the air, and that is a factor which must not be forgotten.
The great problem is how to get maximum safety with minimum noise. As the Minister knows, noise levels can become intolerable. Aircraft noise affects hospitals, schools and even people trying to telephone when an aircraft is overhead. How is essential safety to be maintained with minimum noise when an aircraft is taking off or landing? This is the problem which faces hon. Members and the designers of modern aircraft, and anybody who can square that circle will have made great progress.
My hon. Friend the Member for Woking referred to the Chief Public Health Inspector for Windsor, Mr. Geoffrey Holmes, who is one of my constituents. He has made an intensive study of the problems of safety and noise and has spent many hours of his spare time going into the subject thoroughly. He has produced a number of voluminous reports, some of which have been sent direct to the Minister and some of which have been sent to me, and I have forwarded them to the Minister.
I am not qualified in any way to argue the toss, but I know that Mr. Holmes's suggestions and criticisms merit careful consideration. They demand a reply, not necessarily tonight, of course, for they raise many questions about whether the system of monitoring is effective not only to test nuisance, but the safety aspect, to see whether an aircraft is following the route on which it should be flying.
I have grave doubts whether the meters which measure the incidence of noise and whether an aircraft is on the right track are technically effective or sufficiently numerous to do the job which they a -e supposed to do. I am not absolutely certain that the technical machinery for measuring noise, and, therefore, safety, is as effective as it should be, and I hope that tonight the Minister will give some assurances about this.
It is no use holding a meter out of a car window to measure noise and to test whether an aircraft is taking off on its correct line. A car cannot stand outside the perimeter of London Airport day and night. Anyway, the meters should be on tripods. I suspect that the fact that they are not permits a margin of error. Secondly, it is no good having a monitoring check, if there happens to be a spare monitoring instrument, on the less noisy south-bound traffic when the noisier heavies, although fewer aircraft, on the westward route go unchecked. I strongly suspect that that happens not every day, but frequently.
I have grave doubts also whether the monitoring machinery is effective in respect of residential areas over which aircraft ought not to fly. It is all right for area 3 over which aircraft are supposed to fly, hut when for good or bad reasons an aircraft is diverted or takes off incorrectly, perhaps because the pilot makes an error—and pilots are only human—and the aircraft flies over a residential area over which it ought not to fly, therefore on an unauthorised route, the monitoring system is not effective. This is a mater which should be looked into.
Thirdly, I should like to know from the Minister when the automatic monitoring system is to be installed at Heathrow. All sorts of dates have been suggested. There was one date, I believe, of the spring his year. Now, I am told on the grapevine, it is likely to be the summer. I do not know. It is time that a proper automatic system was installed, and it is a question of what degree of priority the Minister's Department gives to the installation. In particular, I wish to know whether the hold-up has to some extent been due to the complete inability of the Post Office to supply four telephone lines

of the required technical quality or reliability.
Finally, I wish to ask the Minister about the Roskill Commission, which has been set up to inquire into the third London airport. That Commission has very wide terms of reference, including safety and noise. I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the Commission, which is composed of very able men, might well be directed to pay particular attention to what I call the equation of safety and noise in its deliberations, not only in respect of the third London airport, but in respect of the whole problem of air traffic over a thickly-populated island like ours, where noise, the development of new aircraft, the increase in air traffic and the question of safety and noise, and safety or noise, are bound every year, or possibly every six months, to become more urgent.
I therefore address a plea to the Minister, first, to take the report of Mr. Holmes seriously, because he has raised some important questions, and secondly, if he can, to direct the attention of the Roskill Commission to the problem of aircraft noise and safety, which I believe to be one of the most vital technical problems that this country has to face.

11.37 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I agree with the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe) that the whole House should be grateful to the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for raising this important subject tonight. I am only sorry that it comes on at a rather late hour. I also agree with the hon. Gentleman that many of the problems which we are discussing tonight may be solved only when the third London airport is finally built. I cannot help feeling, however, that many of the subjects that I particularly would like to raise will still be very relevant when the navigational requirements and all the other regulations for the third London airport have to be finalised.
The hon. Member for Woking has mentioned the important question of air traffic control operators having to rely upon pilots and radio-telephonic communications for notification of height. The hon. Member is, of course, dealing with the very important question of secondary radar requirements. I have already


pressed my hon. Friend the Minister in the House to give a clearer indication of his Department's policy concerning the requirements for secondary radar and of the research that is being undertaken into this in this country.
I am fully aware that there is no foolproof, comprehensive and clearcut system yet available, but I cannot help feeling that this is something in which this country could once again take a lead, not only in research, but into fitting and the requirements for a secondary radar installation in aircraft operating in and out of Heathrow.
I know that the new Linesman Mediator complex at West Drayton will have basic ground facilities to cope with secondary radar when installed in aircraft, but having myself seen the system whereby air traffic control on the ground has to ask the pilot first to give his identification and, secondly, to give his height, having myself seen reports of breakdowns in communication, and having myself realised how tenuous is the kind of thread of communication which can exist in these circumstances, I would once more tonight ask my right hon. Friend to say when the Government will require compulsory installation of secondary radar devices in aircraft operation in and out of Heathrow.
The next point I want to raise is one I have raised with my right hon. Friend on countless occasions in this House, and that is a more general one about the area navigation system. We know from figures which I have been given in a recent Adjournment debate by my right hon. Friend that over the United Kingdom airspace since 1963 there have been 91 air misses. I understand that 37 of these have involved civil airliners; the rest have been military aircraft or general aviation or light aircraft. We have been told as well that the situation is being examined and that the situation will be improved, but I cannot help feeling that, again, the Board of Trade ought to be taking a much more definite line on the requirements which they lay down with the British Airports Authority about the use of area navigation systems.
I am fully aware that it is the policy of the Board of Trade that this country is in favour of the area navigation system.

I am aware that my right hon. Friend will say that at the last crucial meeting, which the British Air Line Pilots' Association calls the "Battle of Montreal", with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, this country advocated area navigation equipment. I am also aware that the Federal Aviation Agency, in the United States, has only just come round to this way of thinking. What seems to me even more important is that not only is the Heathrow ground equipment already suitable for use in the area navigation system, but that also the entire fleets of B.O.A.C. and B.E.A. are similarly equipped. We are now in the situation in which most major European airports, apart from certain places in southern Europe, are also fully equipped for making use of area navigation equipment.
What really is the use of having two entire nationalised corporation fleets fitted with navigational devices which cannot even be used in their home airport? I know that my right hon. Friend will say that the majority of aircraft, particularly those of Pan American, T.W.A., and other international scheduled carriers, are not similarly fitted. I know that he will also say that if the British Airports Authority laid down regulations that aircraft using Heathrow had to be so fitted, then we might lose flights coming into Heathrow and that they might be diverted to places like Orly, Bonn, Frankfurt, and other international airports with which we already find ourselves in competition.
But when we have a situation which is so serious that even the general public, who have not hitherto shown much technical knowledge about air navigation, are becoming more and more critical and more and more concerned about general aviation safety standards, I do not think that it is good enough for the Board of Trade simply to say that the majority of aircraft are not so fitted and that, consequently, we cannot make this insistence.
Why cannot this country, why cannot the Board of Trade, once again lead the world? We make the equipment already. Why do we not insist that the rest of the aircraft coming into and out of Heathrow also have this equipment, with which the majority of British aircraft, particularly those of the nationalised corporations, are already fitted?
I and my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) have raised the question of Northolt. We know that there is a very complex navigational pattern over what the Board of Trade calls the "North London Complex". I want the Minister to say something about the relationship and the coordination which exists between the civilian and the military air traffic control systems in this country. We know that the air space over the country is divided into that which has been allocated for military purposes and that allocated for civilian flight paths. But when one comes across situations like that of Northolt, where the take-off path comes very closely into conflict with Heathrow, the co-ordination between movements at Heathrow and Northolt must be more seriously examined, as must perhaps the whole question of continuing to operate Northolt.
The Minister will also have to admit that the Terminal Management Area for Heathrow is growing all the time. It is an often-made joke by B.A.L.P.A. that one starts coming into the Heathrow terminal management area even over Shannon, so we can conclude that the Heathrow terminal management area now comprehensively includes airports like Gatwick and Luton and the other peripheral airports around London. I know that my right hon. Friend will have something to say about a comprehensive survey which the Board of Trade has been undertaking into the navigational requirements of the North London complex and also, if he can, about why his Department feels that this report cannot be published, especially since the Department was prodded into undertaking the survey at the instigation of B.A.L.P.A., which was very much concerned about the Luton situation.
This is perhaps the point which the general public, who are more and more making use of inclusive tours and charter operations for their holidays, are becoming increasingly concerned about. In my constituency today, I talked to a constituent who runs a travel agency. He had just returned from the Air Transport Licensing Board hoping that he had managed to obtain a greater number of charter operating licences than last year.
At airports like Luton, in the Heathrow adjacent area, we shall see this year an unprecedented number of charter flights operated. Yet, at the same time, the basic and fundamental navigational requirements at Luton are such that even light aircraft have no requirement to keep in constant radio touch with the control tower. In fact, there is a situation where parachutists, carnival aircraft, gliders, BAC 111s and 211s can all fly in the same amount of air space without some of the same navigational requirements. This sort of situation prompted B.A.L.P.A. originally to prod the Board of Trade to undertake this research. This year, an unprecedented number of charter flights will, I repeat, operate from Luton, and I hope that something will be said tonight to reassure the many and growing numbers of holiday makers who will be using those flights.
It is not just a question of an increasing number of aircraft using Heathrow. I do not think that anyone on this side of the House is saying that we shall increase our aircraft movement figures to numbers now handled by O'Hare, Chicago, Los Angeles International and Kennedy. No one is saying that the 45 to 50 aircraft movements an hour at present operated by Heathrow will next year approximate O'Hare Field's 210.
The point is that from now on we will not only see one standard type of aircraft, such as the 707 or the DC8; we will see a whole range of aircraft with very different navigational requirements. In future, we will see the subsonic Jumbo 747s, for which the Federal Aviation Agency has already said a four-minute headway is required, operating side by side with supersonic Concordes. They will also be operating alongside an increasing number of short take-off and landing and vertical take-off and landing aircraft.
It is not just a question of having a base load of air traffic, catering for 707s and DC8s; but it will be an increasing number of aircraft types all with vastly differing operating caracteristics. It is in this context that something must be done by the Board of Trade and the British Airports Authority to tighten their regulations and their insistence on the standards required for the fitting of equipment.
I do not want to horrify my right hon. Friend again by quoting to him the oft-quoted figures for near misses and actual collisions recorded by the Federal Aviation Agency in the United States. I know that he will be well aware that last year in the United States there were 43 actual collisions and about 2,000 near misses over American airspace. I am not suggesting that this will be the case for Heathrow, but what I do say is that those of us who live under or near the Heathrow flightpath find ourselves thinking more and more about exactly how safe are the aircraft that we either see or hear overhead.
My right hon. Friend may say that this is not a situation calling for panic or crisis action. He may also say that with the introduction of the computer-based Linesman/Mediator system into this country recently we are doing enough. I would only say that in future, if there is a collision or a near miss, we will not be involving two Boeing 707s loaded with about 160 passengers each. We will be talking about a Jumbo loaded with 360, or a charter-seated Jumbo, perhaps with 480. When we think of the consequences of such a collision, for the people living underneath, we could be talking about a possible death roll of over 1,000. The figures do not even bear comprehending, and I would suggest that they certainly merit a far more serious attitude than has so far been shown by the Board of Trade.
I hope that my right hon. Friend can give me some more definite assurances on this than we have had hitherto.

11.55 p.m.

Mr. Anthony Royle: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) for raising this subject tonight. I would like to congratulate the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) on his last few remarks). I represent Richmond, which sits precisely below the glide path into London Airport, and if any tragedy took place—and I hope that it never will —it could well affect my constituents in Richmond and Barnes. The area is only eight miles from the threshold of Heathrow Airport.
Always at the back of my mind during the 10 years that I have represented my constituency has been a horror of a

tragedy such as has been spelled out by the hon. Member for Nuneaton. Over the last few years the main concern of all of us representing constituencies near London Airport, particularly beneath the flight path—such as the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe), whose area is situated precisely the same distance from Heathrow but to the west, as mine, which lies to the east—has been the subject of aircraft noise.
Over the past years I have raised this subject again and again with both Conservative and Labour Ministers. All of them in their own way have endeavoured to find some measures to ease the burden of noise on the part of those who live in areas beneath the glide paths into London airport, but all of them time and again have been frustrated by the Departments and by the pressures which are put upon them as Ministers.
The subject of this debate is that of safety. There is another aspect that concerns me deeply and that is pollution, a matter which has hardly been mentioned tonight. In the last few months the Government have set up a new office in charge of a Minister whose job apparently is to deal with the problem of pollution. but I have heard not one word from the right hon. Gentleman who has been appointed to this office on the problem of pollution caused by smoke from jet engines from aircraft flying over the London area approaching Heathrow. This is a major problem on which I have had no satisfactory reply from any Minister.
I happen to know that the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of State, Board of Trade, who is to reply to this debate, and for whom I have a high personal regard, is particularly interested in this subject. He and I have discussed it privately and I have received from him today a long letter which goes into the subject in great detail. But even when one sets aside all the technicalities mentioned in that letter, the situation is very unsatisfactory.
It is clear that during recent months there has been no real interest in or inquiry into the problem of smoke pollution such as has occurred in the United States. Reports have appeared in the Daily Telegraph over the past three or four months about the action being taken by the F.A.A. in the United States


to deal with smoke pollution. That body is taking major steps to force engine manufacturers and airlines in the United States to use in their aircraft engines which do not pollute the atmosphere.
Even bearing in mind the sympathetic views expressed to me by the right hon. Gentleman personally, I find it hard to accept the comments in his letter that it is very difficult to identify the difference between the pollution from aircraft engines and the general pollution which emanates from a large city or built-up area. The Americans have managed to make such an identification and have also taken action to make certain that American airlines cease to pollute the atmosphere over cities on the approaches to major airports.
I beg the right hon. Gentleman to look into the matter again since it is important to the people who live beneath the glide paths. It is not as important as safety, but is certainly as important as noise. I hope that the initial interest shown by the right hon. Gentleman in this subject will be followed up so that action on the lines of that taken in the United States can be taken on the whole problem of pollution from engines.
I have strayed a little from the main lines of the debate. As I have said already, I think that safety is paramount. It must come before any other consideration. I am deeply worried about the potential danger to my constituents who live beneath the glide path into London Airport. Over my constituency, every 45 seconds at certain times of the year and every two minutes at other times, aircraft loaded with people pass on their way to the airport. Not only do they fill the ears of residents with a cacophony of appalling noise and not only do they pollute the atmosphere with filth from their engines; there is also the danger of accidents on a scale which would horrify anyone who gave a moment's careful thought to the possibilities.
In saying that, I do not suggest that Heathrow should be closed. I recognise that this is impossible. Incidentally, I suggest that we should build London's third airport at Foulness, well clear of the London area, and never again make the mistake of putting a major international airport so near the centre of our capital. However, that is another story.
I am concerned lest not enough care and thought is given in the years ahead to the build-up of the potential dangers of aircraft falling upon residential areas under the glide path. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Woking who spoke about the near miss which occurred on 9th January.
I do not suggest that the right hon. Gentleman and all the civil servants in his Department are not taking all possible steps to ensure that no such tragedy ever occurs. I am second to none in my praise of the skill of the pilots and crew who fly aircraft into London Airport amidst great hazards every day. I am second to none in my praise of the skill of the men who design and build these aircraft. Some of them are personal friends of mine, and I have seen many of them at work. I have the highest regard for the skill and devotion to duty of those in air traffic control. They are responsible for people's lives throughout the days and nights at an international airport, but it is a responsibility which is not highly paid. We all pay tribute to them.
I believe that the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministry are alive to the problem. I welcome the skilled and technical speech of the hon. Member for Nuneaton. It may be that he jogged the right hon. Gentleman and his Ministry in an even stronger way than I can on the various aspects of air traffic control, both civil and military, which he mentioned.
The Minister and his Department take the matter seriously, but I am not satisfied that they take seriously the problem of aircraft noise which is felt so bitterly by so many people who live in the Greater London area. A mass of documents pours out of the Board of Trade. When an hon. Member writes to the Minister, he receives a very polite answer. Great trouble is taken in going into individual complaints. Most people who telephone the airport are dealt with courteously, but nothing ever happens. We hear that rules and regulations controlling the height at which aircraft should be on the glide path are mainly adhered to strictly by pilots, and that a pilot is disciplined if there is a breach of them.
But we are never told of a case where either a pilot or an airline has been fined or disciplined for breaking noise


regulations. I have heard of none during the years that I have represented Richmond at Westminster. Can the Minister give me any cases, with dates, times and the penalties that were inflicted on airlines for breaches of regulations concerned with air noise over the last ten years?
So, more and more of us who are realistic about the subject and represent areas which suffer from this problem are beginning to become cynical and to take the view that all that the Ministry is interested in doing is putting forward publicity and propaganda, trying to keep it quiet, and making statements such as, "The number of complaints sent in this year has been less than last year and, therefore, people are getting used to it." But people may not be writing letters because nothing happens when they do; not because they are getting used to the noise or beginning to accept it.
Alternatively, the Ministry says that it cannot be as bad as all that because the price of property continues to go up and this must mean that the noise is less. It forgets that we have been suffering from a major bout of inflation over the last five years—the worst that we have had since the war—and that that is the cause of house prices going up. Perhaps I should not say that, because it is bringing a political inference into a subject which tonight has been without political inferences of any kind. I will not go farther on that subject.
There is a feeling amongst those who represent areas around London Airport that the Ministry's attitude is, "Let us jolly them along. Let us just make nice noises. Let us make courteous replies and hope that they do not come back and query us again."
Many people in Richmond were particularly disappointed that the right hon. Gentleman was unable to come to a special meeting arranged for next week at which he could give his views of the subject of noise. As we have now had to cancel that meeting, perhaps I can persuade the right hon. Gentleman to attend another meeting later in the summer when the noise is worse. On a nice June day we will open the windows of a hall in my constituency packed with residents who would like to hear his real views and ideas on the question of noise.
The other day I went to an interesting briefing on the subject of S.T.O.L.— steep take off and landing. Looking into the long term future of airport development in the London area, I am sure that this might be a possible solution. I do not go further than saying that it might be a possible solution. I should like an assurance from the Minister tonight that this is being studied in depth.
If it is possible within the next three or four months to let the House know the Ministry's views on this subject, it would be greatly appreciated by those of us who are suffering from the dangers of aircraft overhead, from the noise which issues from their engines, inevitably because these are big and powerful aircraft, and from the smoke and filth which lands on our houses and gardens year in, year out, day and night.

Mr. F. V. Corfield: Mr. F. V. Corfield (Gloucestershire, South) rose—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. I must tell the House that the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield), who is seeking to catch my eye from the Front Bench, has already spoken in the debate and therefore exhausted his right to speak again. Normally only Ministers are allowed the opportunity to speak a second time, and then with the leave of the House. But, in the special circumstances in which the hon. Gentleman was sucessful in the ballot, perhaps the House may feel disposed to give leave to speak again.

12.09 a.m.

Mr. Corfield: I am duly grateful, and I promise to be very short. Indeed, there is no need for me to be otherwise, because my hon. Friend the Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) has so admirably deployed all the points that we jointly wished to bring before the House in the debate.
However, there are three points which I should like to make. The first concerns the report on the 707 accident to which my hon. Friend referred. I think that one must make a reference to the fact that, apart from the adverse criticism of the fire-fighting services, it is clear from this report that there was also a serious error in the cockpit. One hesitates to dwell on


this sort of thing in view of the great skill and gallantry which the crew displayed in bringing the aircraft down with as little loss of life as they succeeded in doing. I should not wish to speculate on what might have been the difference in the result had this error not been made, but it emphasises the fact that the training of pilots in this respect may leave something to be desired.
I should not have mentioned this had it not been for the fact that at the B.A.L.P.A. symposium, which the right hon. Gentleman opened not long ago, the pilots expressed some concern about the training. I am not an aviator of any sort, but it seems to me that the training for emergencies is very similar to the training for war. Its purpose is to enable one to react absolutely automatically with the right movements, however tired one is, whatever the conditions, and however difficult it is, or indeed impossible it is, to think rationally under the circumstances.
It was clear in this case that the various members of the crew concerned had not reached the standard of training which brought that absolutely automatic response which one has of slipping one's foot from the accelerator to the brake to stop a car. One does not think about it. This seems to be an ideal, and I admit that it is one that is not always possible to attain, but I think that when we are considering this matter we must ensure that enough time is given to what is a tedious and repetitive type of training, but nevertheless immensely important.
My second point relates to what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe). He suggested that the Roskill Commission should took at the whole question of noise and the environmental problems that arise from it. I do not think that the Roskill Commission is designed for this sort of operation at all. I should like the Minister to consider what seems to me a much more practical approach; namely, the proposal put forward by Professor Large, of Southampton University, for a mathematical model of these matters, which would require a small amount of Government funds. If the Minister is not aware of the proposal, I shall send him details of it. This seems to me a much more practical way of try-

ing to decide what is the best mix of various measures that one can take to ease the problem of noise.
Obviously, reducing the number of people affected by means of town and country planning control is one method. At the other end of the scale is quietening the engines. In between there are all sorts of measures and different mixes, and it is not easy, purely as a matter of judgment, to decide what is the best mix in any circumstances in relation to noise.
On the question of safety generally, I hope that the hon. Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) was not intending to imply any light-hearted attitude on the part of the Board of Trade in relation to safety, because I do not believe that there is any evidence of that. I do not believe it is true, and I do not think that anything is to be gained by implying that there is any attitude of that sort.
I very much welcome the strong expression of regard which my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) has for the devotion with which the numerous people concerned with these matters carry out their duties. I feel rather more sympathy for the Board of Trade over the noise problem than the hon. Member for Nuneaton appears to do.
It is very difficult to know where to hold the balance, and the more I study this problem the more I come to the conclusion that amelioration—perhaps there is no such thing as a complete solution—is much more a medium-term to long-term operation than something that can be done overnight to make any really drastic improvement. I have some sympathy with the Minister of State when he appears merely, as my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond. Surrey put it, just to jolly people along. It is often difficult to do anything else.

Mr. A. Royle: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, on the noise problem, it is much better for Ministers to stress what practical action they are taking in the long term, and the short term, too—my hon. Friend knows that there are actions which can be taken—rather than jolly people along and produce comfortable words which mean nothing? The general public are not stupid. They can see through it. That sort of thing seems foolish in the extreme, and it should be discouraged.

Mr. Corfield: One's definition of "jollying along" may well differ from one hon. Member to another. I entirely agree that no one wants purely empty phrases. But I was saying that I have some sympathy in relation to the difficulty in the short term, particularly as regards breaches of regulations. However well regulations are framed, it is not always possible to guarantee that they will not be infringed again.
Obviously, the question of noise is very serious. The general public are very sensitive about it. We must all take it seriously, but I sometimes feel that some of the anti-noise lobbies do not appreciate some of the technical difficulties involved.

Mr. Leslie Huckfield: I am amazed that the hon. Gentleman should refer to me as light-hearted while at the same time taking up his hon. Friend's reference to the Board of Trade "jollying" things along. I assure him that in the many references which I have made to air misses and other matters of air safety in the House, I have never accused the Board of Trade of being light-hearted.

Mr. Corfield: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to conclude? I had almost done so. If he had taken the trouble to listen to what I said, he would know that I said that I was disturbed at his suggestion that the Board of Trade was light-hearted. I did not suggest that he was light-hearted. He does not amuse me in the least.

12.17 a.m.

The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Goronwy Roberts): I join those hon. Members who have congratulated the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) not only on his choice of subject but on introducing it in so measured and cogent a fashion. At the outset, too, I express to the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South (Mr. Corfield) my admiration for the tone and content of his speech. It was the reward to the House for having unanimously expressed our desire that he should speak twice. I greatly admired the hon. Gentleman's speech for its balanced view on an extremely difficult and poignant subject.
I need not tell the House that all in the Board of Trade—Ministers and officers—are genuinely and deeply concerned, first, about safety, which is paramount to our thinking and action in these

matters, and also about the other hazards. I confess here that I have a personal interest—something like a passion—in helping to do something about smoke pollution. I hope that in saying that I shall in no way be taken as putting greater emphasis on what the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South and I have discussed—and, I hope, will discuss further—than on other aspects of this difficult and important question of how to maintain both the airline trade, a major matter for this country, and its technical and industrial infrastructure. Both have an important bearing on our internal domestic economy and on our external viability.
Of course we take this seriously. If any letter of mine has given anyone the impression that I am seeking to divert attention from our frequent inability, despite our hard work and dedication to these matters, to produce a quick result, I am very sorry, because that is not intended. I shall watch my prose style from now on. If my letters are somewhat more polemical and less forthcoming in discussing these matters with my hon. Friends—on both sides of the House—I am afraid that the speech of the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey (Mr. A. Royle) will be partly to blame. I know he will take that in the best spirit.
As one would expect, the debate has ranged widely, and hon. Members would not expect me to do more than try to answer some of the outstanding questions. Some I cannot answer tonight. It would be unfair to the House if I tried to answer on technical points. It does the House no service to give incomplete or inconclusive answers. I have not only listened intently to all that has been said—it has been factual, well-reasoned and in the best spirit—and made a note of every point, but I shall follow up, after reading the OFFICIAL REPORT, every conceivable lead which will help us to achieve the balance mentioned by the hon. Member for Windsor (Sir C. Mott-Radclyffe)—squaring the circle between safety and amenity, including freedom from noise and other things.
The hon. Member for Woking raised four points. The first was the accident to the B.O.A.C. 707 at Heathrow on 8th April, 1968. The hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South said that cockpit error may have intruded on to the course


of the accident. The report of the Chief Inspector of Accidents drew attention to a number of deficiencies in the operation of the British Airports Authority fire service on this occasion, particularly in the deployment of fire appliances.
Two things emanated from this report. First, the Chief Inspector recommended a review of aircraft fire and rescue services at Heathrow by a broadly-based working party. I am glad to tell the hon. Gentleman that this working party was established under the chairmanship of an officer of the Board of Trade, containing representatives from the British Airports Authority and the police, fire and ambulance services of the metropolitan and appropriate county authorities. It has met, and is making good progress, and I expect to receive its report later this year.
Secondly, interim action has been taken on a number of important points by the B.A.A. The Chief Inspector's comments were immediately brought to the attention of the B.A.A. and prompt action was taken to improve the service. This action included improvements in the crash alarm system, additional radio telephony equipment, improved maintenance of hydrants, the introduction of new fire vehicles—the Nubian Majors, as these become available—and I am informed that two are now in service—with the result that the fire service now has more than 6,000 gallons of water on vehicles, in addition to the aerodrome hydrant system. There is also additional "hot" fire training and improved liaison with local authorities.
The hon. Member for Woking asked for the terms of reference of the working party. They are to
… review and report on the problems of fire and rescue operations in respect of aircraft accidents at Heathrow, including the problem of co-ordination between the British Airports Authority services and those of local authorities, and to make recommendations
The directive issued to the working party included the heads, "Liaison between the airport and local authorities", "Fire equipment and manning", "Domestic fires", "Ambulance cover" and "Training"—and in this case it is training for the fire service. I agree that we must give increased attention to training. I was recently in Hamble where there is an excellent establishment. I had the opportunity to speak to the principal and

staff there. Everybody in the airline industry agrees that we should constantly examine the possibility of improving training, especially for emergency service.
The hon. Member for Woking then referred to the Trident fire on 29th July 1969, and pointed out that I might feel inhibited about speaking too freely on this subject. I understand that it was concluded that the seat of the fire was on the floor of the front compartment. The evidence indicated an intense and relatively localised fire, starting virtually on the floor and spreading upwards and outwards, fed by seat cushions, bulkhead and curtains or other cabin furnishings. It was thought that the fire must have been started deliberately and that it was assisted by the addition of some inflammable agent such as paraffin.
It is important to ascertain that fire fighting media are right. I gather that the media used by the B.A.A. at Heathrow are similar to those used at other major airports in this country and throughout the world.
I further understand that the investigation carried out by B.E.A. showed that the corrosion in the aircraft resulted from—here is the chemistry point put by the hon. Member—a by-product of the combustion of the fittings and furnishings in association with the water used to produce foam. It is well known that the burning a plastic compounds such as are found in trim and upholstery fittings produces acids, largely hydrochloric acid, and these would condense within the aircraft as it cooled. Without anticipating any investigation which may be proceeding, I do not think I should say more.
I leave that, except to pick up the point made by the hon. Member about the question of tightening up security. I understand that B.E.A. has taken immediate and full note of the implications of this accident. I hope that this accident has led to a tightening up of security. I have no details of what has been done since, but I am grateful to the hon. Member for raising this point. It is one which I should like to probe, and I shall do so.

Mr. Onslow: I am most grateful. I suppose that we can take it for granted that inquiries of the most exhaustive kind have been made as to the responsibility for this fire. When considering it, will


the right hon. Gentleman make sure whether there is the possibility of using dry powder as an extinguishing agency?

Mr. Roberts: Most certainly that is the kind of point one would wish to go into—the use of a dry powder in preference to a foaming substance which inevitably, if it comes into contact with certain furnishings, may generate an acid which may have very serious results apart from a fire.
The hon. Member raised the subject of the near-miss incident at Northolt on 9th January, and it was raised by a number of hon. Members. I think it would be best to await the report of the Chief Inspector of Accidents because inquiries are proceeding expeditiously. I provided, in a Written Answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), information which, I hoped without prejudging the results of the Chief Inspector's inquiries, could indicate to the House what the basic facts were as I knew them.
I would prefer to await the Chief Inspector's report before commenting any further except to say that I quite understand the hon. Member's difficulty about the reference to the direction given to this plane. It would normally have had to turn right. In fact, it was directed to turn left. I must reiterate what I said in that Answer, that the control saw that this aircraft, flying at 500 feet—quite 850 feet below what it should be flying at—was headed, if it proceeded directly, to ground higher than itself, and also if it turned right.
Therefore at this stage, speaking personally, I do not know what the alternative could have been other than to direct it to turn left. However, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that this must be—and it is, in fact—the subject of the most searching inquiry. Like the hon. Gentleman, I shall look forward to studying the Chief Inspector's report in full when it is published.
The hon. Member for Woking also referred to Press reports of experiments conducted by pilots without the knowledge of their airlines. I have indeed seen these Press reports. I assure the hon. Member for Windsor that any comments, reports, suggestions, which Mr. Holmes or anybody else—I am aware of Mr.

Holmes's great activity and interest in these matters—cares to put to me will receive the most sincere and careful attention. I have not so far received, either from Mr. Holmes or from anybody else, any formal report about this. The Board of Trade welcomes constructive suggestions, preferably from an aviation source, if they relate to flying techniques which may make air traffic safer and quieter. Any such proposals are considered, and will be considered, on their merits.
I emphasise that safety and noise aspects would obviously need to be tested under properly controlled conditions. I very much agree with what has been said about this kind of activity, if it has happened. Procedures followed by pilots at take-off and landing contain some flexibility for pilots' discretion, but I am sure that it will be generally agreed that ad hoc experiments, especially in the course of passenger-carrying operations, involving departures from the procedures laid down, are to be discouraged on safety grounds.
I say no more at the moment. I would like to see any report that is available. I can assure the House that the matter does not rest there so far as I am concerned.
I hope that the House will bear with me if in coming now to a number of unrelated but none the less important points I depart from the glide path from time to time and do not make a continuous speech. My hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr. Leslie Huckfield) is constantly and informedly urging the Board of Trade and myself, as is his right, to do more for safety in particular. I listen to my hon. Friend with great pleasure always but cannot always decide precisely what he is urging upon us. It is not enough to say that the Board of Trade does not take these matters sufficiently seriously. My hon. Friend must put forward proposals.
One proposal which my hon. Friend constantly urges upon us is for area navigation facilities. We discussed this question fully in the Adjournment debate in which my hon. Friend and I took part last November. I will not go over the ground tonight. But I urge him, ant; invite the House, to read the report of that debate, in which my position was fairly stated.
On area navigation facilities, my hon. Friend is well aware of the increasing provision we have made for VORs and DMEs. He is well aware of the increasing provision of radar. He knows about Mediator. I will not go through all that again; it is enshrined, I hope in impeccable prose, in the OFFICIAL REPORT for 26th November, 1969.
In recent times there has been increasing interest, I am glad to say, in the greater flexibility in the use of busy air space which might accrue from the general availability of area navigation facilities. This subject was discussed recently at a meeting of European states under the aegis of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. There has been reference to the fact that aircraft of the corporations and other aircraft are fitted with this instrumentation.
The United Kingdom is a firm proponent of such navigational capability provided it is accurate and reliable enough to facilitate closer spacing of aircraft in busy air space without lowering safety. Clearly, any new aid intended for international use requires standardisation or recognition by I.C.A.O. My hon. Fri end was getting very close to asking us to place some kind of sanction on foreign aircraft which did not conform with what we have done in fitting area navigational systems in Britain. I do not know how one does this.
We must negotiate with other users. Civil aviation is an inward as well as an outward process. It will take some time to accomplish, bearing in mind the necessity for demonstration and proving, the varying national interests—and I mean "interests"—and the very large sums of money involved. Also, airlines must be given the opportunity to compare the merits of competing systems before they can be expected to embark on the costly and lengthy task of equipping their fleets. But I can give this assurance: the United Kingdom intends to maintain its interest in developments in this field and to encourage, as far as possible, the eventual adoption of suitable systems.
My hon. Friend mentioned the position at Luton. I agree that airports which are less busy than the so-called international airports and the London group of airports are growing in activity and are presenting problems as well as opportunities.

The study group's report was internal, covering many other problems as well as Luton's problems. The gist of the report on Luton has been sent to the Civil Aviation Control Advisory Committee for discussion next month.
The hon. Member for Windsor mentioned the Roskill Commission. It is not for me here to speak on the scope of this inquiry, but I note what the hon. Gentleman said. It is perfectly right that I should draw the attention of my appropriate right hon. Friend to this part of the debate. I tend to agree with the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South that there is some dubiety about how this fits in with this kind of inquiry, but considerations similar to those raised by the hon. Member for Windsor should at least be noted. I am answering a Question about an automatic monitoring system tomorrow, and I prefer the House to await that considered answer.
I agree with the hon. Member for Richmond, Surrey that we have to look ever more carefully at the subject of pollution. I hope that he will remember that I said that by talking about these things and not being able to do much about them one must not be thought to be diverting criticism or avoiding the issues.
The hon. Member made some interesting comments about what is happening in the United States. I am inquiring into this, and I was doing so before the hon. Member mentioned it. If there is anything that we can learn from the United States, we shall learn it.
The hon. Member referred to the potention of S.T.O.L. and V.T.O.L. This is linked with the prescient and balanced remarks of the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, South, who said that there was little that we could do about noise in the immediate short term for all our efforts, but that the industry was working on it. S.T.O.L. and V.T.O.L. are distinct possibilities. I should like at some time to discuss the engineering and technological improvements of engines; I find them very hopeful. One's experience is that while one is careful to look to the long term for technological improvements, one is often startled when the time scale is shorter than had been expected.
I cannot honestly pretend to the House, and I never have done so, that this serious


problem of noise is susceptible to an easy and quick solution, but I assure hon. Members that we are doing everything we can and we look to improvements in the not so distant future.

Mr. A. Royle: I have been immensely impressed by the right hon. Gentleman's speech. I have heard many speeches in the House on this subject over many years, but the right hon. Gentleman's was the best speech on this subject I have heard from a Minister in either Government over the last ten years. He has answered many questions extremely well in the course of a very able speech, and the very fact that he has given such an excellent exposition makes it even more important that he should meet my constituents and make these points to them. Will he answer my question and say that he will come to my constituency?

Mr. Roberts: I thought that that encomium would lead to something. I wrote to the hon. Gentleman to say that if I could not go I would see to it that an expert official from my Department attended. I make no promise—the hon. Gentleman understands how Ministers are placed—to come at a later date, but, as always, I will carefully consider whether it is possible. If it is, nobody will be more pleased than I, although I do not know how the hon. Gentleman's constituents will feel after hearing me.

ARTS COUNCIL, OPERA AND BALLET

12.49 a.m.

Mr. Stanley Henig: In starting this debate on the special report of the Arts Council on opera and ballet, the first thing one has to do is to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, who will be replying to the debate. One of the theories behind this kind of debate is that hon. Members criticise or probe. In the case of the Arts Council, the first thing to recognise is that over the last five years, since my right hon. Friend became responsible, as it were, for the council, the amount of Government spending in this most important cultural area has gone up considerably. If we bear in mind some of the economic circumstances of those years, it is no mean achievement on my

right hon. Friend's part to have been able to do this.
It seems to me that any society that is worth its salt should be doing, in the relative age of affluence that we have today, just this kind of thing for the arts. Having said that, however, I think that my right hon. Friend would be disappointed if I did not go on to show and ask for ways in which a little more might in due course be made available for these things.
During the last five years the Arts Council budget has more than doubled. Opera and ballet, to which I particularly wish to draw attention, have had their share upped by 80 per cent. The amount going to the smaller companies—Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells excluded—has quadrupled. These figures are rather good, because they mean that the balance is better than it was five years ago. Five years ago, far too high a percentage of Arts Council money went simply to two institutions, Covent Garden and Sadler's Wells. The spread is now very much better.
Having said that, however, we must face the fact that it is rather unsatisfactory that we have only two houses permanently giving opera and ballet—that is to say, for seven or eight months of the year—and that one of those houses gives opera all the time and the other has to divide itself between opera and ballet. If we make comparison with the obvious examples of Germany and Italy, or even with other countries of Western and Eastern Europe, I do not think that we have yet reached a position in which we can be too satisfied with the state of affairs.
When we look at the provinces, the situation is altogether different. Cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff do not have opera or ballet for more than a small number of weeks in the year. This is clearly unsatisfactory and one would like to see us perhaps copying some of the better things that are done in this respect in other countries.
I confess straight away that I was anxious to raise the subject because I am an operamane. This is the first time that I have been able to speak about my hobby and interest in the House of Commons in this way. I am sure that what led me to be an operamane more than


anything else was that as a schoolboy in the City of Leicester I was able to go and listen at a cheap price to opera performances performed at that time by the Carl Rosa Company, which undertook the responsibility, usually without public support of any kind, of going round the country and helping to introduce people like me to opera.
I am sure that if I saw those performances today, I would have all sorts of artistic criticisms; the scenery often wobbled, and things like that. None the less, they were artistic experiences. During the course of a week in a town like Leicester, five or six different operas were given.
Leicester is less lucky today. At least, the younger people do not have the same privilege. Leicester has the rather dubious distinction of being one of two cities—Stoke being the other—of more than a quarter of a million people which have had no opera by a major touring company during the last three years. This is something about which I am a little worried.
When Carl Rosa had the unfortunate tragedy, as I regard it, which led to its winding-up and ultimate amalgamation into Sadler's Wells, one was assured that the amount of touring would not diminish. My impression—I may be wrong, and perhaps my right hon. Friend can correct me—is that over the years there has been a decline in the amount of touring, that Sadler's Wells today does not do the amount of touring that Carl Rosa did 10 years ago, and, what is more, that it is able to visit fewer and fewer cities. With the move to the Coliseum and consequent enlargement of scenery, Sadler's Wells gets a house far bigger than a house which can be found in the provinces, and that could, I suspect, make things worse. The other thing is that the opera side of Covent Garden seems to have dropped, all pretence of having any responsibility outside London. I think this is rather a pity.
Turning to the report which has occasioned this debate, the first thing one is bound to say is that a good job has been done in assembling the facts about opera and ballet in the United Kingdom. There are also positive proposals. Having said t lat, however, one cannot help feeling teat the report itself is perhaps a little bit innocuous, in this sense, that the composition of the body making the report

very much reflects the operatic and balletic establishments in the country. In the report is hardly any criticism of anything. I know we are all on the same side: we all want more money for the arts; we all want more theatres. However, it seems to me that perhaps a little bit of criticism could be made of a number of points in the existing structure of opera and ballet in the country, and I will come to those in a few minutes.
To take up one or two points in the report, there is first of all a minor one. I note that D'Oyly Carte is not finding it as easy as once perhaps it did to make ends meet from its own budget, but does not seem to get support from public funds. I may have missed a point about this, but I wonder whether the Minister would comment on it and say whether this unique national institution would get some kind of help from public funds. I think it is quite essential.
Another minor query. The money going to Sadlers Wells has been broken down into that used to support the home company and that used to support the touring Company. From a rough compilation it appears that a performance of opera in the provinces costs about £4,000 in public subsidy. A performance of ballet in the provinces costs considerably less. However, direct comparisons can be made with the cost of performing an opera in London—about £2,000 in public subsidy; and a performance of opera, also in the provinces, by the Welsh or Scottish National Operas—again about £2,000 in public subsidy. It ought to be brought out why there is this discrepancy in the cost of supporting these different institutions.
Another thing is that since the report was published we have had a change in the organisation both of Sadlers Wells and of Covent Garden. The two opera companies at Sadlers Wells have been amalgamated and the two ballet companies at Covent Garden have been amalgamated. The one opera company will, apparently, go on tour part of the year, but divided into two. During the rest of the year it will not tour. A similar arrangement will happen with the amalgamated Royal Ballet.
A very curious statement was made by the people carrying forward this change, to the effect that this would save a lot of money, but there would not be fewer


opportunities for young singers and dancers. I do not follow this. Either it does not save money, or there will be fewer of those opportunities. One cannot have it both ways. There seems to me something rather odd here.
It would seem to me that over the years there will be fewer jobs for our singers and dancers, and I am a little bit concerned about this and would welcome some reassurance from the Minister, because it is probably true that today Britain is producing more young singers and more young dancers of international standard than ever before, and I am rather worried about where they will find their outlets. I know one place where they are finding their outlets. I spent some time in Germany a couple of months ago. In each city I went to I found young British artistes making a major contribution. I was delighted to find this, but the thought went through my mind; are we stopping them from making their contribution at home, and are we not appreciating them here, so that they go to Germany to find opportunities? That is worth looking into.
A major point emerging from the report concerns the possibility of a new auditorium for opera and ballet. The report discusses the possibility of separating opera from ballet at the Royal Opera House and concludes, rather tamely, that since ballet nowhere in the world has a house purely for itself, we should not do it. I do not follow the reasoning. The Royal Ballet is, deservedly, more popular in this country than any other ballet company is in any other part of the world. It occupies that position with reason: it is one of the finest ballet companies in the world. Rather than build another and smaller auditorium in the Covent Garden area after the market has moved, using it for opera and ballet, both arts might be served better by separating the two.
I put the proposal to my right hon. Friend that Drury Lane Theatre, a wonderful theatre which is in the neighbourhood and has perfect sidelines which the Royal Opera House has not got, should be purchased and made into a permanent home for the national ballet, leaving the Royal Opera House for use for opera alone. In this way, both opera and ballet could be put on by the Covent Garden companies every night

of the season. This would be a major advantage. What are the chances of it? Why was it not mentioned in the report? Will some consideration be given to this proposal at the same time as my right hon. Friend is considering the alternative idea of building a second auditorium, which might well cost about the amount that would be spent in buying the wonderful Drury Lane Theatre which already exists.
But perhaps even more important is the question of the provincial opera houses. The report is probably right to be modest here. We have, in fact, no provincial opera houses at all. As a mere Englishman who has enjoyed visiting the Edinburgh Festival, I find it appalling that after 25 years Edinburgh has not yet found a permanent home for opera. I hope that something will be done there quickly.
Much the same applies to Manchester and Cardiff, the other two centres the report moves towards. As a North-Westerner, I would like to think that Manchester's claim, with its music tradition, for having the first provincial opera house in England outside London should be paramount. I would like to see Yorkshire opera also moving towards having an opera house; but we must walk before we can run. But these two projects would be a major breakthrough for every one, and, once we had incurred the capital cost, we would increase the public for opera and ballet as well as opportunities for our artistes to involve themselves in creative activity. Gradually, the spiral would work in the right direction.
Perhaps the report, while it does mention it, does not concentrate sufficiently on the importance of the B.B.C. in this respect. Sandwiched at the back is the appendix on audiences for particular programmes. Five million people watched a performance on B.B.C. 1 of "La Traviata" during the period under review. Our biggest Opera house, Covent Garden, can seat only about 2,300 people at any performance. It would have to perform "La Traviata" every night for about six years to get the same size of audience as that commanded by the B.B.C. 1 performance.
It is important that the B.B.C. should carry on with its cultural rôle. I do not necessarily mean that it has to be done along particular lines. I deliberately


mentioned that "La Traviata" was on B.B.C. 1. I do not like the idea of having one channel for all culture and no culture at all on any of the others. I hope that if anyone on the B.B.C. reads this debate he will bear in mind that we are desperately anxious for the B.B.C. to carry on with this most important rôle. I believe that out of the five million people who watched "La Traviata", some at least will have said to themselves afterwards, "Let us go to an opera house and see what it is like there". That is most important.
What about the points that are prehaps inadequately dealt with in the report, or the points that may somehow have been "fuzzed" over? I hope that the powers that be will take what I have to say in the right spirit. Reference is made to the Repertory Co-ordinating Committee between Sadler's Wells and the Royal Opera House. If the Committee does work, I would simply say that it is not seen to work. During the season 1968–69—and I am dealing here only with opera, because there is no ballet going on at Sadlers Wells, although I am concerned with the overlap in opera—at the Royal Opera House there were 131 performances of 24 operas, and at Sadlers Wells there were 230 performances of 23 operas. Five of those were in both repertoires. The five in question were "The Magic Flute", "Madam Butterfly", "Don Giovanni", "Rigoletto" and "The Meistersinger".
I am not disputing that those are important operas, that from time to time ought to be in the repertoire of every major house. Having said that, it often happens that a whole season goes by and none of these operas is in the repertoire of a house. Why during that twelvemonth period did those five operas, taking up quite a large number of performances at each house, have to be in both repertoires? This is something that ought to be looked at, given that there are many operas which people in Germany and Italy would consider basic to the repertoire which have not been seen in London for many years.
When we think about some of the rather silly things that happened shortly after Sailers Wells produced its wonderful performance of "Meistersinger" and Covent Garden seemed quite unaware that this had happened, I would have

thought, without causing further embarrassment to anyone, that things could be a little improved in this respect. I do not want my right hon. Friend to comment on what I have to say now, but I think that the Covent Garden management must be, perhaps a little more careful in how it goes about certain things. Rightly an independent body, not subject to day-to-day control, it is wielding a lot of public money, and in the way in which it organises its administration and makes appointments and things like that it must be seen to be a public body. I say no more about this. I think that people know what I am getting at. It is better to say no more perhaps than warn Covent Garden that so long as it is in this position, and it is always likely to be, a lot more care is needed.
Obviously, there is a problem here. I do not know the answer to the problem of how one reconciles some kind of public accountability with an independent artistic policy. I suppose that ultimately one has to let an opera house go on producing its operas but regulating it by the amount of finance that is given.
I have a slight suspicion that some of the things done in the last year or two may not have been good investments; but we need not say anything about this at this stage. A specific point I want to make, and I cannot understand why there is no reference to it in the special report—unless I have missed it—is that for many years now there has been a complaint, by both the Royal Opera House and Sadlers Wells, about grant being given only on a year-to-year basis, with the result that there could be no proper forward planning.
I wonder whether this is a constraint on planning. Is there an assumption at Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells that perhaps the year after next there will not be any grant, or a reduction of grant and, therefore, they might not be in a position to go ahead and book the artists they need? I would think that this is rather odd. As an absolute minimum we could now give to these bodies a guarantee that their grants will not be cut over that period. I would push this point on my right hon. Friend.
Another point which receives no mention at all in the report—but by coincidence the annual report of the Royal


Opera House dealing with activities during 1968–69 was published a few days ago—was what has happened in recent years to the Covent Garden Opera Company. The names used to be listed in the back of its annual report, and up to a few years ago the number of its major singers amounted to 29. It then dropped to 22, and this year none appears in the back of the report. There is a long list of singers who appeared, but most of them did not belong to the company. How many people belong to the Covent Garden Opera Company now? Is the company in a position to cast any of the great operas purely from its own talents?
I like the idea of having international artists coming to London, but sometimes an opera is staged with a cast of perhaps four or five international artists who come to London, perform together and then depart. This gives no opportunity for our younger singers to join with them in some of their performances and learn from them. This is most unsatisfactory.
To make a comparison with the ballet, there is the difference that our ballet is represented by a permanent company. This is why I suspect that in one sense the artistic standards of our ballet are higher than those of our opera. The ballet is our own, whereas with the opera we are not certain what is ours and what belongs to the international travelling circus. Many of us enjoy seeing these great singers performing in this country, but the relationship between visiting and home singers must be looked at much more closely.
I turn to the situation in the provinces. Fundamentally, despite all the efforts that have been made, the position still obtains that for three-quarters of the population of the United Kingdom opera and ballet are strange things that are able to be enjoyed only if people are able to come up to London. They may occasionally, by the grace of the authorities, be brought to a locality but by and large they do not play a significant part in the life of the smaller communities.
I blame the local authorities to a considerable extent for the situation. Local authorities are empowered to spend up to a 6d. rate on these matters, but I would not expect any local authority to spend anything like that amount, and, in

fact, none does. But there are large authorities which spend literally the smallest possible fraction of a penny on opera and ballet. Some of these local authorities should consider whether they are doing the best they can in educating the younger generation since it is important that they are given an opportunity to see performances of opera and ballet.
I believe it is essential to have one or two new opera houses spaced round the country in which small opera or ballet companies could perform in the first instance. In talking of opera houses, I am thinking of suitable halls in which opera and ballet companies could perform. I am not suggesting that suddenly there should be an opera house in Manchester and for forty weeks in the year the Manchester Opera and the Manchester Ballet and only those two companies should perform there. That would be the quick route to financial disaster. Obviously, other companies would perform at the House, although its primary purpose would be opera and ballet.
Similarly, there ought to be new houses in Liverpool and Cardiff. I should like to see one or two national companies built up which would perform operas at one of these theatres but would move around into some of the areas which at the moment do not get the opportunity to hear such performances. Any extra money that is made available in the next few years for the arts, particularly for opera and ballet, almost certainly as an A.1 priority must go to the provinces. One realises the problems involved. I have spoken of the possibility of providing a second auditorium by buying Drury Lane Theatre in London. It seems to me that fundamentally these have to be second priorities.
I should like tonight to hear the Minister say where she sees the priorities and what hopes she can give of some guarantee on the financial arrangements so that all these companies know where they will stand in two or three years' time and so that they may enjoy greater freedom in their artistic policy for a longer period ahead.

1.14 a.m.

Mr. H. P. G. Channon: The House has been fascinated by the speech of the hon. Member for Lancaster (Mr. Henig), and we are very


much in his debt for his remarks. It is a great pleasure to hear an hon. Member speaking so enthusiastically about a subject which he obviously knows so well. He and I share a deep enthusiasm and love for opera. Now that I have heard his speech, perhaps we shall be able to make happier pairing arrangements to enable us both to enjoy more opera. So late has our debate begun, we would have had time to enjoy a complete performance of "Götterdammerung" and still have got back to the House in time for this debate.
The hon. Gentleman applied for this debate really in two parts: the Annual Reports of the Arts Council and the Special Report on Opera and Ballet in the United Kingdom. I want to make a few general observations first, and then I will return to the hon. Gentleman's fascinating remarks about the opera and the ballet. I agree completely with him about the need to co-ordinate performances, and "The Meistersingers" is an outstanding example of the need. I hope that the right hon. Lady will feel able to comment on that.
The hon. Gentleman should be congratulated on raising this topic, since we have not had a debate on it for a considerable number of years, though there have been opportunities for general debates on the arts in another place. Certainly, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that support for the arts is vitally important. It is one of the great tests of a civilised community. They are widely appreciated by an ever-increasing number of people, and I agree with all that the hon. Gentleman said about them.
Since the arts were last debated in this House, there have been three important documents. The first is the Report of the Estimates Committee on the Arts Council. The second is the White Paper on Public Expenditure. The third is not a Government document but the work of two Americans, Professors Baumol and Bowen, on the Income Gap in the Performing Arts. All of them are relevant. I have one point of disagreement with the Estimates Committee, but, like Lord Goodman in his contribution to the Arts Council's Annual Report, I am delighted that the council received such a clean bill of health. It is to be congratulated.
Since we are debating this report as well as the Special Report on Opera and

Ballet, and since this is the first opportunity that I have had to do so in this House, I want to pay my tribute to Lord Goodman for his magnificent work and for the public spirit which he has displayed in his efforts on behalf of the Arts Council. I also pay tribute to the members of the council for the enormous amount of voluntary work that they do. We are grateful to the staff of the council, some of whose senior members have just retired or are soon to retire. They deserve special commendation for their work on behalf of the arts over many years.
On a personal note, I regret the departure of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) from the Arts Council. I am delighted that he is to remain a member of the music panel. He has given very distinguished service to the council, and I hope that, if he has more leisure in the future, one day he will be able to resume his valuable contribution to the arts, while continuing his services to the music panel.
I congratulate the Arts Council on its report, which is an extremely interesting and thorough document. But why does it have to be so late? Here we are at the end of January, 1970, having had the report for only a short time, when it is for the year ended 31st March, 1969. Excellent though these reports are, perhaps the right hon. Lady could ask the council to get them out a little earlier.
In general terms, there has been general agreement for a number of years that the arts deserve a higher priority in our national life. We are all pleased to note that it has been accorded a higher priority by succeeding Governments over the years, and I am sure that the process will continue in the future. I am delighted that this is so, and that there is no need to be defensive about it.
In his opening remarks of the report, Mr. Willatt, the Secretary-General, points out the enormous numbers of people who take an interest in the arts, the large numbers of people who take part in these activities and attend performances at Covent Garden, go to the Hayward Gallery, and take part in so many activities that are supported by the Arts Council.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the increasing financial support for the arts


that Her Majesty's Government have made available in recent years. It is true that there has been extra financial support, but I point out one comment which is important. Page 12 of the Arts Council's report says:
Nevertheless, this has meant a standstill in terms of money"—
it is talking of the last few years—
(although in those terms alone) for the Council and the great majority of its clients as most of the extra £½ million has been used to meet the cost of inevitable wage and salary increases.
The next paragraph says:
If we cannot, in the year 1970/71, help our clients to move from a standstill position, ground may really be lost. A grant pegged for three years means something worse than standstill as costs rise and because an artistic enterprise can never be a static affair; it must either go forward or go back.
Although there has been extra finance available for the arts, I must point out that a large proportion of it—and the Minister was unable to give me a detailed answer recently to a Question of mine—has gone in increased costs. I know many people in different sectors of the arts who feel that they are, in real terms, no better off than they were two or three years ago.
The Arts Council must be judged on two standards: first, whether standards are going up; and, second, whether opportunities are expanding. For many years it has been a favourite statistic in many Government documents that the Arts Council receives less money from the Government than is spent on military bands. I think that that situation has now been reversed, but only just.
No one could say that there has been excessive expenditure on the arts. I think that we can all, with a clear conscience, defend the sums that have been spent on the arts not only on the grounds that I have talked about earlier, but also on their immense attraction for tourists. If we analyse what the arts have brought into this country as well as what is spent on them, I am not sure that there would be a deficit in the ledger.
There are several points that I should like to make on the report; first, the structure for distributing patronage in this country through the Arts Council. Lord Goodman in his foreword points out that he
remained unrepentantly of the view that our own system, divorced from direct

governmental intervention, and free, so far as any social institutions can be, from political slanting, was to be preferred in a country where it was acceptable and would work.
I agree with everything that Lord Goodman says in that foreword. I am deeply opposed to the Ministry of Culture way of running the arts which he describes in many European countries. Nevertheless, I think that there is a case for looking at the present system, which has some defects.
The most important thing is that there should be a sympathetic Chancellor of the Exchequer. If there is no sympathetic Chancellor of the Exchequer it does not matter what ministerial structure we have in this sphere. But I agree with what Lord Goodman says about divorcing the system from direct governmental intervention. I should like to see ideas for divorcing it all further from direct governmental intervention which would at the same time strengthening the position of the chairman to act as a link and a buffer between the Government and the Arts Council.
I understand that some time ago there was an inquiry into the organisation of the Arts Council. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us what happened to that. I have never seen any report. It would be most interesting if the Minister could tell us what happened to that inquiry into the structure and organisation of the Arts Council.
Apart from its structure, how is the money used? First, it is used to maintain standards. This is done partially by supporting great national institutions such as the ones mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. I am worried about touring, not only ballet and opera, but theatre touring, too, I am frightened that touring may be looked upon as a piece of necessary drudgery, or that the situation could arise in which only the second best toured outside London. It is not fair on artists to expect them to perform in inadequate conditions, or to ridiculously small audiences.
One of the worrying features of recent years has been the fact that the National Theatre, which puts on magnificent spectacles, attracts much smaller audiences out of London than one would imagine. There was the famous occasion at Bristol when the National Theatre attracted smaller audiences than the local


Bristol Repertory Company. The Bristol company is a good one, but it is remarkable that the National Theatre could not attract larger audiences. I hope that the Minister will be able to say something about touring by the National Theatre, and also about the recent controversy referred to by the hon. Gentleman, concerning the Royal Ballet.
Can the right hon. Lady comment on the fears of the National Council for Civic Theatres? I understand that these fears have been expressed to the right hon. Lady and her colleagues, and it will he interesting to know whether she thinks that these fears are justified. If they are not, perhaps she will allay them.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman when he says that, apart from maintaining standards, it is crucial for the Arts Council to spread the opportunities for seeing the arts in this country. I have had the pleasure of visiting nearly all the regional arts associations. There is tremendous growth potential in these associations which provide local initiative, plus support from the Arts Council. They often have difficulty with their early administrative costs, and I wonder whether the Minister will consider making more help available to them in the early stages. These associations sometimes have difficulty in getting off the ground, and a small sum of money might make all the difference between getting off the ground and being put off for ever.
I should like to pay a special tribute to Mr. Abercrombie for the work that he has done during his term as regional adviser. He has done a magnificent job in the regions.
The hon. Gentleman referred to local authorities. This is not within the terms of the debate, but I agree that a very worrying situation has arisen because of the very small sums of money which many councils feel able to provide. These councils have grave financial difficulties; I do not blame them for their attitude, but I am certain that more can be done to encourage them to do more and to spend money to the best effect. I am sure that ways can be found to enable them to do that without losing their independence. I reject the idea that they should be made to spend money on the arts. I do not think that a mandatory system would be fair, but there

are ways—and we can debate these on another occasion—in which they can be encouraged to do more.
I propose to deal now with State patronage of the arts. There are two problems which will exercise the Arts Council and the Government very much in the future. First, there is the avant-garde. How will they encourage new ideas, techniques, and experimentation? The Conservative Party held a seminar on the arts about a year ago, and one thing that came out of it was the extraordinary difficulty of defining avant-garde in the arts, what should be supported and what should not.
Connected with that in a way is the question of subsidies to individual artists, which the Arts Council goes in for on a big scale. If hon. Members look at the Arts Council's accounts, they will see the grants that are made to individuals. In all, these amount to nearly £120,000 a year. I am not surprised that people have said that it is this aspect which causes most controversy about the work of the Arts Council. It astonishes me that there is not more controversy about it. I question whether it is the right way to spend nearly £120,000 of public money in making these individual subsidies. If the Arts Council is to take on more fields of inquiry—heaven knows, it has had enough already—that might be a useful subject for the Arts Council itself to look at. There is a growing problem here, and the public are entitled to know the criteria adopted for these grants.
It is an agreeable feature that during the reign of Lord Goodman there have been so many inquiries by the Arts Council. They have blossomed as never before, though I am not sure that much action has been taken on many of them. Looking at the list of names on the obscene publications inquiry, perhaps one hardly need read the report itself.
I return to the hon. Gentleman's question: what will be the fate of the report on opera and ballet? Later, I hope that we shall have a chance to discuss, at Question Time at least, if not in debate, the report on the theatre which, we hope, will be out in the not too distant future. Tonight, will the right hon. Lady tell us what are the implications of the opera and ballet report, and whether the Government accept the broad principles of


it? If they do, what is the cost of the proposals, and what timing do the Government envisage?
The financial implications are very large. On page 46 of the report, with reference only to the three regional centres recommended, we are told that the costs might well be about £15 million capital expenditure and a total of £5 million running costs. That is a large sum of money, and it does not take into account any of the other implications of the report, of which there are many which will cost money, though not on the same scale. There is a recommendation about pensions for singers and dancers. It is worth reminding the House, as one should in all debates on this subject, that although the State provides large public subsidies for the arts out of taxation, the largest providers of subsidies are the artists themselves, who are underpaid in the majority of cases. They are the true providers of public subsidy to the arts.
It is of crucial interest to all concerned for opera and ballet to know the Government's attitude to the report. For my part, I regard it as an extremely valuable document. I am only too anxious that opera and ballet should be supported in this country, should develop and grow, and should be popularly supported. However, one must recognise that there are other high priorities here. Some which spring to my mind are musical education, museums and public lending right.
Considering the future of opera, one must ask about the future of Covent Garden, which is largely in the Minister's hands. What is the state of play in regard to the Covent Garden site? The right hon. Lady herself set up a committee which has been sitting for two years now. When shall we know its conclusions?
I come now to the one point on which I disagree with the Estimates Committee's Report on the, Arts Council. There is an income gap in the performing arts, and that income gap is bound to grow. Private patronage in this country has declined. However, I do not believe, although the Estimates Committee believed, that private patronage is impossible to revive. I do not believe that anyone has yet tried it. It could give enormous advantages as an adjunct of

public subsidy. People would directly help themselves and take responsibility for artistic activities. It would be an enormous improvement of our artistic life. There are many ways in which this could happen. This is not the time to outline possible schemes, but the time is coming when a proper public debate should begin about the best ways of achieving this. It would be in the best interests of private patrons and the State and of our artistic life.
I have greatly welcomed this debate. We are grateful for the work of the Arts Council throughout its 20 years and more at successful and highly meritorious activity.

1.36 a.m.

The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Miss Jennie Lee): This has been for me a remarkable debate. It is not often that a Government who have been in power for six years have achieved an apparently impeccable policy. I was waiting to see whether any point of substance would be made by the hon. Member for Southend, West (Mr. Channon) which would give us new illumination or new points of departure. I am not scolding him. On the contrary, I am delighted that he should be such a complete convert to the policy and practice of my Government over the arts.
When the first White Paper was published, I made it clear that there would be no political direction. That, I hear, has been accepted. I also join the hon. Gentleman in his tribute to Lord Goodman, to the Secretary-General, to Mr. Abercrombie in his different jobs, to the very distinguished staff, and to the enormous number of people of great distinction who serve the Arts Council voluntarily. We are fortunate to have not only what I consider to be the most civilised philosophy for dealing with the arts, but also so dedicated and distinguished a staff to carry it out.
I was asked what has become of the inquiry into the organisation of the Arts Council. This was a purely domestic inquiry, not for publication. I was asked about many other publications and inquiries. An example is this latest report on opera and ballet and the question of how far it can be implemented. We must have two things. We must have our


immediate policy, which will be controlled by the amount of money available, but we must also have long-term forward planning, not just for a year or two but for decades ahead.
It is outrageous that Scotland, Wales and the North have no opera house. This should have been put right not last year or five years ago, but 15 or 25 years ago. It is outrageous that only now we are beginning to mobilise sufficient public support and Government backing to have these matters seriously considered. I was delighted only a few days ago to receive a letter from the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, confirming that Edinburgh is now willing to pay even a little more than half the cost of an opera house for Edinburgh. The recommendation of the Arts Council committee is that there should be an opera house in Wales, one in Scotland and one in the North, which would probably be in Manchester. On present costs, it is estimated that the capital cost of each would be £5 million, or a total of £15 m Ilion. It is also reckoned that there would have to be an annual subsidy of at least £5 million.
We have reached the stage of having a recommendation from this distinguished committee. That no doubt means that I shall be receiving from the Arts Council every encouragement and pressure to go ahead with these schemes. I am not in a position to make any commitments, except to point out that while the hon. Member for Southend, West referred to sympathetic Chancellors, in the last few years we have had exceedingly sympathetic ones. I wish that I could say the same about their predecessors.

Mr. Channon: That is exactly the note that I hoped would not be struck in this debate. Under both Conservative and Labour Governments the grants have been increased. During our term in office the available funds were trebled. Under Labour they have also increase d considerably. I had hoped that we would keep this subject out of party politics. I now hope that this increase in funds will continue, whichever party is in power.

Miss Lee: I try always to look to the future rather than concentrate on the past. At times that becomes difficult,

and I get exceedingly angry when I think of the lost opportunities, particularly when we speak in terms of building great opera houses.
That, however, is not the only problem. Part of the reason why it is difficult to promote touring is the fact that our artists will remain unwilling to tour unless there are civilised amenities in our theatres. In 1950 we had only 20 repertory theatres. We now have about 60 not nearly enough, but the increase shows the direction in which we are moving. The amenities in those repertory theatres are being improved. We have 109 projects which are being helped by funds from the Housing the Arts Fund. Only 11 of those projects are in the London area, and 33 of them are for theatre improvements.
I am always flattered when it is assumed that the present Government can do everything that needs to be done in this context in a very short time. We are trying to do our best. There was rather more touring in opera and ballet immediately after the last war, but many of the smaller companies, for financial and other reasons, went under. Considerably more touring is being done now than in the 'fifties, but because the commercial theatre for drama, ballet and opera was unable to carry on, we have had to try to define what we need in terms of companies and performances.
As far as I am aware, the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is not receiving a public subsidy. However, I have no doubt that if it applied for subsidy its application would be carefully considered by the Arts Council. The report on the Covent Garden site is expected literally within a matter of days. I therefore cannot comment on this subject, and must ask hon. Members to wait.
When we move from the established arts—opera, ballet and the serious theatre—and come to the more experimental side, we must consider how to encourage new techniques and distinguish between what is worth while in experimental art and what is just a lot of silly nonsense. This is an extremely difficult matter to decide. Nobody has a complete answer to this problem, except that it is agreed that we must be extremely careful to allow all sorts of experimentation, even though it may not always reflect our


tastes. I forget which Chinese leader said "Let many flowers bloom".

Mr. Henig: Mao.

Miss Lee: For obvious reasons the Chinese may have got cold feet. We have not got cold feet. We believe in letting many flowers bloom, but it is a difficult matter when dealing with experimental art and young artists. I hope that the increasing emphasis of my Government will be in looking after the young and experimental and in providing public buildings to develop civilised values for those in many less fashionable and less attractive parts of the country. This is the expensive side of the job, to which we are giving ever increasing priority. It is just not true—but people keep repeating the canard—that everything comes to London and the regions are neglected. A few years ago we had only three regional arts associations; now we have nine.
The hon. Member asked if more help could be given to them in their early days. I was rather surprised about that because the appointment of Mr. Abercrombie was specifically so that he should be able to go around and give them advice. The Arts Council and able officials in my Department are all on the alert to give them every help they can. Often the difficulties in the early days come not so much from lack of information but from not knowing how to reconcile many local interests. We have even established a course at the Polytechnic, where we are beginning to train people to help in giving that kind of advice.
I come to the delightful speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster (Mr. Henig). We all enjoyed listening to him and hearing the enthusiasm with which he talked about this wonderful subject. I hope that I can answer his questions fully. Only two opera houses! Of course we have no ground for complacency, but our history is different from that of many continental countries. Little German States thought of an opera house as a status symbol. It was like the piano in the home in this country. For historical reasons they inherited a great deal and we inherited very little. I hope that we are going to be able to find more money

for building for housing the arts, because until we can get more building, especially of opera houses, we shall not have the right kind of centres that can feed the smaller places.
I hope that hon. Members will not feel unnecessarily distressed about the fact that Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells have now amalgamated their companies. Many of the artists did not like touring and there was a tendency to consider that the touring company was rather secondary. Now there is one immense company, and the same artists will do their share of touring and have opportunities to tour with Covent Garden and Sadlers Wells. The division into two groups for ballet, one of 85 and one of 25, will mean that some of the great classics, like Swan Lake, will be able to go into the regions to places to which they have not been before and smaller groups can go into smaller places to which they have not gone before.
The Arts Council would not have sanctioned this move if it had believed that it was running counter to its policy of promoting the interests of the regions. On the contrary, it believes that the regions will be advantaged by it and that in the meantime there will be broadly the same amount of touring as at present. However, as there is only a limited number of artists of this great distinction, and with the demands in London and for touring abroad and in the provinces, we must be on our guard to ensure that the provinces do not suffer.
I hope that I have given the essential assurances which have been asked for. I, too, would like to dream about taking over Drury Lane, but we are not in possession. We hope that there will be a great expansion of opportunities for Covent Garden. When the House of Commons Select Committee investigated it, it said, rightly, that the conditions behind stage were appalling. It would be wrong of me at this moment to hold out any certainty that there could he vast improvements or increases in the amount spent for the arts. I can only say that I am delighted that on all sides there is acceptance of Government policy and of the growing importance of the arts. I shall always be delighted to be pressed to travel in the direction in which I am so anxious to go.

MIDDLE EAST (ARMS SALES)

1 52 a.m.

Mr. Raymond Fletcher: It is a matter of great regret to me that, after listening to three civilised speeches about civilisation itself, I have to steer this debate into rather different channels and talk about war rather than about the arts and point to dangers real and present rather than hopes. Unfortunately, I have to do this, because it is about war that I intend to speak.
Obviously, I cannot hold Her Majesty's Government responsible for the 30-year war which seems to be before us in the Middle. East and is now entering its third decade. The Government were not responsible for that war and they cannot be made, even by me, to accept responsibility for enforcing any kind of peace from outside. Nevertheless, we are involved in that area, and other Powers are involved there, too.
Because I want to define as closely as I can the precise nature of Britain's responsibility in this widening conflict, I must travel by a rather circuitous route. In other words, I shall have to refer to the actions of other Governments in this area and deal in part with the immediate historical background, because Her Majesty's Government's policy in supplying arms to other States, and in particular to the States in the Middle East, is clearly defined. It is a policy designed to preserve the present balance of power which might, if events move hopefully enough, preserve the present unstable, uneasy peace and prevent it from exploding into a repetition of the hostilities that ended in June, 1967.
Therefore, when making demands on the Government, we must ask ourselves precisely what constitutes a balance of power. Nobody can define what a balance of power is in arithmetical terms, because a balance of power can only be analysed when it breaks down. We now know, over 50 years later, exactly where the pre-1914 balance of power broke down in Europe and why it broke down. So there can be no cold analytical assessment of the various elements which go into a balance of power, and the arithmetical assessment is probably the least satisfactory—100 tanks there must be balanced by 100 tanks there. As every-

body knows, to put it more calmly than I normally do, one division commanded by a genius can chase off the field three armies commanded by idiots. So factors other than the factor of arithmetic have to come into the calculation.
But in this area there is apparently a significant change in the military balance as we saw it in the immediate aftermath of the Six-day War. There is no need to detail all the deliveries or specify the arms which have been delivered, but President Nasser has maintained that the supplies he is getting—and we know where he gets them from—will enable him to reopen the big war in about five years' time.
Another factor which has entered into this uneasy balance is that the guerrilla action, which is ostensibly directed only against the State of Israel and the citizens of Israel, is exploding outwards into the rest of the world. It is impossible to contain the kind of attacks which have taken place against the Israeli airline E1 A1 to that airline; airports being what they are, other airlines are bound to be affected sooner or later. So, in a very real sense, this conflict is exploding outwards, and one of the factors in the new balance of power which is emerging is beginning to hit people who have no more connection with the conflict than the Eskimos of Northern Alaska.
Into this already dangerous situation the French Government have insisted on introducing the most imbalancing factor of the lot, and that is the arms deals which have begun with Libya but which will certainly extend to other states in the area. The arms deals themselves tend to escalate in quantitative terms the more they are discussed. When the Mirages were first mentioned in the public prints, 10 was the figure. Now the French Press talks in terms of 100, and some comment over here has jacked up the figure to 120. We know that an unspecified number of AMX.30 tanks—a rather heavy tank, believe—is possibly to be delivered to Libya, again by the French Government. The figures can be argued about; the fact is there.
Most people are fairly well aware why the French have suddenly become the world's foremost nation of military shopkeepers. It has nothing whatever to do with any ideological commitment to either side in the Middle East conflict. It has


to do with oil and with the embarrassment of having French troops fighting in the Chad area and what can be done to relieve them of that embarrassment. It has nothing whatever to do with any kind of ideological principle—unless the greater glory of the former unlamented President of France is regarded as a principle.
But to supply arms to Libya at this time is dangerous for two very important reasons. The Government of Libya, which I do not propose to insult, is nevertheless a revolutionary Government; and revolutionary Governments throughout history have never been conspicuous for adhering to agreements signed by their predecessors. Indeed, the first acts of most revolutionary régimes are to make a bonfire of all the agreements, all the scraps of paper, signed by their predecessors.
It is also a characteristic of a revolutionary régime to regard practically all the agreements signed by Powers they regard as reactionary as merely scraps of paper. Therefore, when the French proclaim that there are guarantees written into this arms agreement to prevent the transfer of aircraft and tanks to third parties, I am not nearly so impressed as perhaps I ought to be, because one has to take very much into account the revolutionary nature of the new régime in Libya and the fact—and this is obvious and one does not need to be a strategist to assess this, for one need only look at a 6d. atlas to see it—that the new strategy of President Nasser after the failure of the Rabat summit conference is to base himself on groupings in the west rather than encircling in the east, and, therefore, Libya and the Sudan occupy positions of key importance in his strategy.
The second point that must be made about any arms sales from any country to Libya at this moment, because of the association, actual and potential, with Egypt, is that wherever these guns are placed, in whatever part of the Middle East they may eventually be placed, their target is all too apparent. They will not be trained against any people other than the Israelis, and they will not fit into any strategic plan other than the Arabs' self-proclaimed plan—the liquidation of the State of Israel.
It is for this reason that French actions are producing so serious an imbalance in

what was already a very unstable balance of power, that I feel it right to argue that Her Majesty's Government's policy on the supply of arms to the Middle East must at least be subject to a drastic review and, as a result of that review, be the object of a drastic change.
It is not only the regional balance in this area that must be preserved. Incidentally, in deference to the feelings of so many of my hon. Friends, let me make it clear at this stage that I would prefer a situation in which no arms of any kind were going to the Middle East, to either of the contending parties in that area. The ideal solution would be a jointly organised and jointly policed Russo-American embargo on all arms going to the area; but it is as hopeless to cry for that as to cry for the moon.
Given the situation that we are in, and given the fact that some kind of rough balance of power is the only way in which this situation can be prevented from exploding into something that might be even more catastrophic than the war of 1967 and could engulf a far wider area in its catastrophic consequences, we have to try to preserve such balance as exists.
The regional balance is characterised by one important factor. It is not and never can be a symmetrical balance, because of the non-material factors which flow into it. Once the Israelis have lost a single battle, they have lost a State and have lost a nation. Defeat for them means the end. The Arab nations, for obvious reasons, which again are apparent from a 6d. atlas showing the area, can sustain defeat after defeat and still survive and, very foolishly, come back for more.
In my view they have sustained four disastrous defeats, because I regard the aerial campaign which is virtually concluded in the Canal area as the fourth of the campaigns waged by the Arab States against Israel. Because of the different consequences of defeat for each of the two sides, we cannot say that a symmetrical situation can be achieved. That is one of the calculations that should flow into any assessment of what we ought to do.
Even if we get a rough regional balance of power, however, that balance of power has to fit into the global balance of power. It is quite obvious that things


are happening in the Eastern Mediterranean which are having a profound effect on the global balance of power. They have already been recognised by President Nixon, and I sincerely hope that they will be recognised by the Government here.
Let us take just two things into account. The first and the most obvious, is the Russian naval strength that is at present deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean. It does not frighten me. It is not a totally new factor in history. The Russians have been trying to get something going in the Mediterranean ever since 1774, and in 1827 we fought with them to help the Greeks gain their independence. We fought the Battle of Navarino, a quite remarkable battle about which I should like to talk at greater length. The Russians have been there for quite a long time, but the nature of their presence in the Mediterranean has changed profoundly, and we have to take this into account.
Also, one cannot isolate the Middle East into simply a conflict between Israelis and the surrounding Arab States, because in so far as Soviet power, in the form of military advisers, equipment or naval deployment, is in the area, it affects N.A.T.O. and, in particular, the rather weak southern flank of N.A.T.O., and it is something that we have to take into account. I do not suggest that we should shake fists at the Russians or that we should even get angry with them. I merely suggest that it is something that we have to take into account when we formulate policies governing the supply of arms to anywhere in the Middle East.
My second point about the nature of Russian penetration into this area is that there are now 3,000 Russian military advisers with the Egyptian armed forces. In time, if it has not already happened, this will give those Russian military advisers effective control of the Egyptian armed forces and, therefore, a high specific weight in the whole machinery of the Arab States. I remind the House that in 1913 a German general, Liman von Sanders, was in the Middle East with a staff of 70 advisers. Four years later he controlled all the Turkish armies.
This therefore, is the second point: that the global balance of power is being affected by what is happening in the Middle East and that we have to take

into account the maintenance of that global balance of power just as much as, perhaps even more than, the extent to which supplies of arms from outside can lead to a maintenance of the regional balance of power.
I hope that this factor is being taken into account as seriously in Whitehall as it evidently is in Washington. If the balance were to be allowed to tilt against Israel over the next five to 10 years, if the Israelis felt that everybody was against them, that nobody would supply them with anything and that they were being isolated militarily as well as diplomatically, certain dangerous consequences could follow. One of them might well be that Israel might make what, in my view, would be a tragic decision, a decision to go nuclear.
I do not doubt—nobody who studies these things in Britain doubts—that Israel could become a nuclear country, if not a nuclear power, as we use the term, very soon. It is producing enough plutonium, so I was told recently by Alastair Buchan, of the Institute of Strategic Studies, to make two bombs a year. This has been confirmed in the 1970 edition of Jane's "All the World's Aircraft", in an article contributed by Mr. W. R. Taylor, the editor, who also maintains that the Israelis could build very quickly a delivery system to carry nuclear warheads into the Arab States.
This is something which nobody wants to happen in the Middle East, but it might happen if the Israelis felt they were in a desperate situation, that they were isolated, that we had deserted them, that others had deserted them, and that the military balance was destined to tilt more and more towards the Arab States, given the proclaimed aim of the Arab States, which is, of course, the ending of the State of Israel itself. This might happen, and anyone who knows the Israelis knows quite well that, rather than surrender, rather than sacrifice this State and this nation, they might even inflict upon themselves—and this would be a disaster for the whole world, because it would spread outwards—a kind of nuclear Massada. This is a danger in the future, but it is something which we have to reckon with in the present. We do not want it to happen.
Therefore, I ask my hon. Friend one or two questions, as briefly as possible,


because I am, as, on this issue, I usually am, in danger of putting myself out of order. I ask him to ask his right hon. Friend to start now a review of this entire policy. In particular, I ask him to reconsider the supply of Chieftain tanks. When the Chieftain deal with Libya was debated in this House all sorts of arguments were presented, but the main one was that the King of Libya was almost as solid a feature of that area as the Rock of Gibraltar. The king, unfortunately, has now departed into the kingdom of the shades and an entirely new situation has arisen in Libya.
When some of us argued in this House and outside that Israel should not be denied the kind of tank which Libya was then on the point of receiving, we were told that this tank was so highly sophisticated a piece of military hardware that it would alter the qualitative balance of power within the area. This argument I now return to my Hon. Friend. Has the situation changed sufficiently, as I argue it has, to support the argument for the supply of this tank to Israel?
I also ask what the Government can do, or intend to do, in association, of course, with other Governments concerned, to implement the policy recommendation of Western European Union on this question of arms supplies to the Middle East. I repeat that the ideal solution, or, rather, the ideal contribution that can be made by outside Powers to a solution to the Middle East problem, is a total arms embargo. I do not think that we can get it, and there is no such thing as a unilateral arms embargo. That is a nonsense, as we have been discussing in relation to the tragic situation in Nigeria. But perhaps we can do something. Perhaps we can start discussions. Perhaps we should try.
So I suggest to my hon. Friend that the foundations on which the present policy was based—that is, an assessment of the military balance of power in the Middle East about a year ago—have now been virtually eroded, that the French arms supplies constitute so important a quantitative factor that they alter the situation radically, and that this changed situation calls for at least a review of the Government's policy with-

out necessarily changing the terms in which it is defined.
I suggest, too, to put it in rather emotive terms, because my sympathies with Israel are well known inside and outside this House, that if by any action at this time of stress and danger we let Israel down in any way we shall earn the condemnation of the entire civilised and democratic world.

2.16 a.m.

Viscount Lambton: All of us regret that there is not a larger House to listen to the arguments put so lucidly by the hon. Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher). It seems to me that he has made many unanswerable arguments, even if depressing ones. Perhaps the most depressing thing about the whole situation in the Middle East is that what is happening there seems to contradict the old maxim that history does not repeat itself, because it appears to be doing just that for the third time.
As the hon. Gentleman said, in the last 20 years we have seen the same pattern building up in the Middle East three times. We have seen incidents, increased purchases of arms by either side, followed by incidents followed by a balance of arms being sought by either side as it is now sought by the Israelis, followed by more serious incidents, the picture in the end culminating in war. This penultimate stage has been gone through twice during the last 20 years and it seems to me that we are on the verge again of an outbreak of increased war.
It was much easier for the hon. Gentleman to pose the questions and the difficulties, as he did so ably, than it is to give answers as to how the problems can be met. I think that often we make the mistake of believing in this House that many questions are soluble. I cannot help thinking that at the moment this question is insoluble, anyhow by any actions of the British Government. One must also face the depressing fact that no nation which has ever wanted arms has ever failed to be able to buy them.
I come now to the question of the balance of power and the sale of the French fighters, for which the hon. Gentleman has so savagely criticised the French Government. There was great


force in his argument that this again upsets the balance of power in the Middle East and returns us to the pattern I spoke of earlier—imbalance in one direction being redressed and tilting the other way. Already Mr. Nixon has said that the United States will perhaps supply Israel with a number of fighters to make up for it.
We must look at this in two ways. First, does Libya want these fighters for herself and if so, for what possible purpose? Who will man them? As far as I know, there are no pilots in Libya capable of flying planes of this degree of modernity. The suspicion voiced by the hon. Member that these planes are not primarily for use in Libya, but for use by Egypt or her allies against Israel at some future date, must be seriously considered. This is a matter of considerable regret.
We cannot omit, too, the fact, and this is dangerous, that there is not in Egypt either, so far as I am informed, an adequate supply of pilots to man these planes. One of the dangers is that in order to have these planes serviced and flown properly, and ensure that the wastage is not as high as on some other Egyptian arms, there will be an increase in Russian and other foreign personnel in Egypt and Libya.
I return to the rather depressing point that this is not leading anywhere except back to the pattern I have referred to. It is also impossible to separate the Middle East into various patterns. It is fair to ask the Minister whether this shipment of arms to Libya, and the consequent upsetting of the balance of power in the Middle, East plus Soviet infiltration, does not make our planned total withdrawal from the Gulf in 1971 even more undesirable. Should not the Government consider a slowing-down of our withdrawal, since there are no signs that the Federation there will be an efficient unit by 1971? With increased Russian power in the area, it would be a pity if our withdrawal was total and irrevocable by 1971.
At the bottom of the trouble caused by the entry of arms to the Middle East lies the conflict between Israel and the Arab countres. We on this side have always felt that any settlement between the two sides must depend on a firm foundation of understanding of the terms upon which peace could be built. Will the Minister

elucidate the phrase in the U.N. resolution of 1967 calling upon Israel to withdraw from territories occupied? Will the Government say whether they mean all territories occupied or merely some of them? Unless this is cleared up, both sides will go on believing that they are in the right and peace will be pushed even further away.
I wish to comment how depressing I find this debate. On both sides of the House we are almost powerless to do anything to prevent events marching on to the climax which they have twice reached before. Therefore, it is not inappropriate to regret the upsetting of the balance of power by the sale of this considerable force of planes to a country which cannot, so far as we know, have any method of using them herself and which does not need them for her own protection.

2.36 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Evan Luard): My hon. Friend the Member for Ilkeston (Mr. Raymond Fletcher) has raised a problem of vital importance, a matter which concerns many people in this country and elsewhere. The conflict in the Middle East in itself is a problem of great magnitude which so far has defied all attempts at solution, and which periodically erupts in the violent engagements recorded almost daily in our newspapers.
The question raised is: how far is this situation exacerbated by the supply of arms to the area from outside sources; and what are the principles on which the Government base their policy on these matters?
Before I comment on some of the specific questions raised by my hon. Friend and also by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Viscount Lambton), I will try to explain in general terms our policy in relation to arms supply in this area and the principles on which it is based.
First, I would recall the fact that at the time of the June war of 1967, from which all the present troubles stem, and immediately after that war, the British Government several times called for a general embargo on the supply of arms to all countries in the area, and, indeed, we ourselves for a time unilaterally applied an embargo of this kind. But, as my hon. Friend pointed out, a unilateral embargo of this sort cannot of


itself be of great value unless the example is followed by other countries.
We would have been willing to take part in an agreement either to stop altogether the supply of arms to the area, or at least to limit the supply of arms in specified ways. Unfortunately, all these efforts, which we have repeated a number of times, have not been taken up by some of the other Governments principally concerned. As a result, we have remained ready to consider specific requests for arms from Governments in the area so long as these meet the principles which we have laid down for supplying such arms. I will now try to describe those principles.
We have many times made clear that one overriding consideration in meeting these requests is the effect of any particular transaction on the chances of securing a peaceful settlement in the area. This means considering above all the balance of arms in the area at the time in question, and not merely the numerical balance of arms; we must also be concerned about the overall balance of strength, of military effectiveness in the area. This means that it is not simply a question of counting the tanks or the aircraft, as my hon. Friend pointed out. Certainly, we do not wish to leave any country in the Middle East at such a disadvantage that some aggressor might be tempted to take advantage of it.
These are the main principles which, in the light of the general political situation in the area, we have to apply, and have applied, in considering requests for arms from Governments in the region. We have received a considerable number of requests from Governments on both sides in the conflict. In the light of the principles that I have referred to, on a number of occasions we have had to turn down requests from one or other Government of the region.
As my hon. Friend said, these are not easy principles to apply in practice, and a number of difficulties arise over them. Military strength cannot always be calculated easily in exact terms. Certainly, it cannot be measured according to the exact number of arms alone, without having regard to the capacity to use those arms. The exact quantities which exist at any one time are not always precisely known, though we have fairly reliable

estimates. Finally, it is necessary to consider not only the balance at any one time, but what it may be at some time in the future as a result of new supplies which may be made at some point to one side or the other.
My hon. Friend has drawn attention to another difficulty, which I intended to mention in any event. There may be new supplies of arms by some other Government to one or other of the countries in the area which may have an effect on the balance of arms in the conflict which we are considering. That is one difficulty, and, clearly, we have to take account of any new supplies of this kind which may be made to one side or the other. I think that my hon. Friend omitted to take account of the fact that there have also been supplies of arms on the opposite side of this conflict of a higher grade of weapon than perhaps is available on the other side. We have to take account of both new developments of this kind in considering our policy.
Another change which may come about and which again may affect the consideration of the military balance is a change in attitude or alignment of Governments on one side or the other, due perhaps to a change in Government. This, again, may alter the previously existing balance of power. All alterations of this kind are, clearly, relevant in considering the kind of balance that I have been describing, and they are all significant factors to be taken into account in reaching any decision on matters of this kind.
My hon. Friend called specifically for a drastic review of our policy on these matters as a result of the kind of factor which he described. I must tell him that we keep matters of this kind under constant review, and have no set policy which we follow blindly regardless of changes which occur in the balance of the area. I can assure him that we are reviewing, and have consistently reviewed, our policy in the light of the factors to which he drew attention and those which I described.
I will deal with some of his specific questions in a moment, but he made another point about a review of our policy. He said, as did the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, that in any such review we must take account not merely


of the balance between the main parties to the conflict, but of the global strategic balance between East and West. I hope I do not need to reassure them that Governments in the West, naturally, are concerned about the global strategic balance, and changes which may have occurred in it through the increase in Soviet naval power in the Mediterranean certainly have not gone unnoticed by Western Governments.
However, the global balance is a matter which must be separated from the balance between the Arab States and Israel. Our prime consideration in considering a request for arms either from an Arab Government in the area or from Israel must be the effect on the balance between those sets of countries. Although the other consideration may not be altogether ignored, it will, clearly, not be the main factor in our minds in considering requests of this kind.
These are the general principles which govern our decisions.
I now turn to the particular question of Libya, which was raised by my hon. Friend and was also mentioned by the noble Lord. As the House knows, we are at present engaged in discussions with the Libyan Government about the whole of our future relationship. These discussions will certainly cover, among other things, the possibility of the future supply of arms from this country to Libya, if only because there was already a question of the supply of arms from this country to Libya before the change in Government took place.
I can assure my hon. Friend that in conducting these discussions, which are beginning to take place now, we are conscious of the very factors which he raised and, above all, of the possibility that any weapons which we supplied to the Libyan Government might finally be used against Israel. We have indeed already asked for certain clarification from the Libyan Government on this very point. We have noted some of the public statements by Libyan leaders relative to this consideration, and certain reports which have appeared that it is possible that Libyan forces might be sent to the front to join those of other Arab countries. We also agree that supplies of arms by third countries to a country such as Libya—for example, the aircraft which France is now to send—are a rele-

vant consideration in this respect in so far as they may alter the balance.
I should like to refer to one or two of the points that were mentioned in this connection. Obviously, one of the crucial points is whether these aircraft are likely to be used in the conflict between Israel and her neighbours. Concerning these aircraft, it is apparently a firm condition of the contract that the planes should not be sent to the front to take part in the fighting against Israel. I believe that the aircraft will not be supplied immediately all in one batch to Libya; so it will be possible to get some idea whether this condition is being abided by before the contract is completed. This is one point to be considered.
Another point—and here I must take up a point made by the noble Lord and also by my hon. Friend—is the suggestion that these aircraft in themselves, if they were to be used in the conflict against Israel, would be bound to overturn the balance and tip it against Israel. I suggest that a consideration of the situation in the area, especially in the air, as it has been revealed in the last two or three months, scarcely suggests that there is at present any danger of the balance being tipped very rapidly against Israel. I think that we must all have observed that Israel seems to enjoy a total superiority in the air in the area. This may not be unrelated to the fact that there have been recent supplies of aircraft to Israel. I entirely accept that were these French aircraft to be used in the conflict against Israel this would be a new factor in the situation which would affect the balance, but we should not necessarily conclude that it would immediately tip the balance to the disadvantage of Israel.

Viscount Lambton: The point that I wanted to make was that it has already resulted in a promise from America to consider sending more aeroplanes to Israel. Therefore, this does generally step up the amount of effective modern arms introduced into the area, which I think should be deprecated.

Mr. Luard: I think that the noble Lord has made a big assumption there: that this deal by France with the new Libyan Government caused the recent statement by President Nixon to which he refers. I should not necessarily


accept that there is a direct relation between these two facts. But I entirely accept the point that there is a danger that any new deal of this kind will cause an escalation in the general supply of arms to the area, and this, as I have already indicated, is a factor which we always bear in mind in considering questions of this kind.
I cannot, naturally, comment on any particular transactions which may finally be made—for example, with Libya—as a result of our present negotiations. In any case, we have not reached the stage when particular transactions are discussed, and no commitments have as yet been entered into. But even if they had, as my hon. Friend knows and accepts, it is not the policy of the Government —and it would be an impossible policy —to divulge the details of any such deals. I am simply asking my hon. Friend to be confident that we are by no means unaware of the sort of considerations that he has raised. It will continue to be our policy in dealing with these matters to try to ensure that a fair balance of military strength is maintained in the area.
My hon. Friend referred to the supply of Chieftain tanks to Israel, and asked us to reconsider this question. He referred in particular to "the qualitative balance of power in the area". I think that I have by implication dealt with that in what I have said. These questions are continually under review by Her Majesty's Government in considering the supply of arms to the area. No firm and irrevocable decisions have been taken, or will be taken. Every decision is open to reconsideration, and, clearly, in considering this possibility we shall have to take careful account of the balance of arms in the area.
We shall also take account of the type of arms available in the area. By using the phrase "the qualitative balance of power in the area" my hon. Friend raises this question in a specific form: we shall have to consider whether there are in the area tanks of precisely the same capability and power as those to which he referred. This is the kind of point of which we shall have to take account.
My hon. Friend also referred to the recent W.E.U. resolution and suggested

that we should enter into discussions with other friendly Governments on this whole question. I assure him that we are continually in touch with friendly Governments on matters of this kind. It would not be right for us to be bound by the attitude or decision of every such Government, but we have had exchanges of views within the last day or two with the French Foreign Minister on questions of this kind, and raised many of the same type of questions as my hon. Friend has raised in the debate today.
Although I cannot see how this is relevant to the debate, the noble Lord again asked a question which he has asked me more than once. He referred to the reference in the Security Council resolution passed in 1967 to "territories occupied in the recent conflict" and asked whether that meant all territories occupied in the recent conflict. I must repeat what I have said before, that it is not for me, personally, to interpret the somewhat ambiguous and sphinx-like words of the Resolution. As the noble Lord knows, discussions are taking place in New York between the four Powers on new guide-lines for Ambassador Jarring to return to the Middle East and seek to use his influence to bring about a settlement of the conflict. That phrase is one of the things that will be considered, but it would not be helpful for me to try to give an individual interpretation of what is meant by those words.
I hope that I have been able to clear up some of the points which have been raised during the debate, and to make clear the principles which guide our policy in relation to the Middle Eastern problem, and, in particular, to the supply of arms. Our policy is designed to bring nearer the day when a settlement may be possible. Meanwhile, we shall do nothing, either in supplying military equipment, or in refusing to supply it, which may increase the possibility of renewed conflict, or make more difficult the chances of arriving at a peaceful settlement, which we all desire.

Mr. Speaker: Order. I remind the House that we are about to begin the ninth of 23 debates which are to take place during this long sitting. I have appealed from time to time for reasonably brief speeches.

UNITED NATIONS SPECIALISED AGENCIES (JACKSON STUDY)

2.45 a.m.

Mr. Frank Judd: The Government recently declared their commitment to increased expenditure on overseas aid and development. In recent weeks, debate has been concerned with the adequacy of the scale which they envisage. Tonight, towards the end of the First Development Decade, and in the light of Sir Robert Jackson's far-reaching Report on the United Nations, I wish to review the work of the multilateral agencies which the Government have declared to be an increasingly important channel for their action.
Candidly, there is little undiluted enthusiasm for the multilateral agencies, and, perhaps, especially for the specialised agencies, of the United Nations. Attitudes range from downright hostility to cautious ambivalence. Even the most fervent United Nations lobbyists have moments of doubt. Much of the criticism is unjustified, but there is enough which is sufficiently valid to demand attention.
Many of the criticisms centre on the administration of individual agencies. They are accused of being top-heavy and more concerned with empire building at headquarters than with efficient work in the field. While in some respects this is true, there are explanations which cannot be ignored. For example, the International Labour Office, which celebrated its 50th anniversary last year but whose origins go back well into the last century, was never intended to be primarily an operational organisation. Its function has been research, evaluation and guidance for member States, which were expected to take action themselves.
The much-maligned U.N.E.S.C.O., when originally established after the Second World War, did not have development as its prior obligation. Its bias was intentionally academic. With a number of the other United Nations agencies, it is not always certain how far, in their early years, they were intended to have their own direct programmes and how far their purpose was consultation and coordination.
Be that as it may, there are few United Nations agencies today, even of the most

technical character—for example, the Universal Postage Union, the World Meteorological Organisation, the International Civil Aviation Organisation and the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organisation—which do not now pride themselves on their own development operations, small though they may seem, and these, obviously, cannot escape analysis in terms of cost-effectiveness.
There is no doubt that United Nations operations are relatively expensive. Some will argue that what is wrong is the absence of Treasury control, and that the agencies are cushioned from the economic difficulties of individual countries which constantly compel Government Departments to prune their administrative machine. This argument claims that the imposition of a nil increase in the budget of a United Nations agency is almost unthinkable.
Also, there are grave personnel problems. These include political pressure surrounding senior appointments and a shortage of sufficiently well qualified people both for headquarters and for field work. There is at present a particularly acute shortage of really first-class economists.
Criticisms of policy are equally forthcoming. A fundamental principle in the work of all United Nations agencies is that they are supposed only to respond to requests for assistance. This means that their activities can be dissipated over a wide area, with minimum effect. It means, also, that those Governments which are good at requesting assistance in the acceptable form and jargon are likely to receive priority attention, whether or not, by absolute standards, they really deserve it. It means that some agencies become passive, failing to develop an organisational ideology. One of the newest, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, is an example of just that.
If some agencies become passive, others become too remote in their concern with global strategy. In the past, the F.A.O., in its preoccupation with an Indicative World Plan, has been slow to promote the more immediate cause of balanced regional development. In fairness, we should recognise the problem which it faces in this respect. Individual developing countries frequently fail to recognise


the inherent value for themselves in regional policies. They compete for special attention instead of co-operating.
U.N.E.S.C.O. is open to the same sort of objection. With between 750 million and 1.000 million illiterates in the world, a World Literacy Campaign makes sense; but there is little point in preparing a world-wide master plan unless the regional and local structures for implementation are there.
The reservations about I.L.O. are different. It has a distinguished record of specific and precise deliberation. However, with attitudes to industrial relations transformed, it is arguable that when it was brought into the U.N. family in 1945 an opportunity was missed to reconstitute it as a new organisation with a wider purpose, covering economic and social affairs and incorporating the work of what is now known as the Economic and Social Council of the U.N.
The World Health Organisation, with its regional centres in Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean, the Americas, South-East Asia, Europe and the Western Pacific, has introduced a degree of decentralisation which could be envied by other agencies. There is some argument about the statistical accuracy of W.H.O.'s claims about malaria and smallpox control, but about its bias there can be little argument. The affluent members of W.H.O. regard it as a "doing agency", with a limited amount of research coordination. They do not see its function as regional research. Apart from the three reference centres in the United States, Britain and New Delhi, it has been spending a mere 75,000 dollars a year on contract research—enough to support three and a quarter biological research workers.
So firm is the line against research by W.H.O. that Martin Kaplan's plan for a world health research centre was rejected. This would have been able to redress the world balance in research, for whereas the affluent nations are primarily concerned with degenerative diseases, it could have concentrated on communicable diseases—the priority of the developing countries. This negative decision contrasts dramatically with the French proposal for a cancer agency with an income of over 1 million dollars a year, and, despite the views expressed

at the time of the decision, a fully fledged basic research programme. Behind all the respectable facade of W.H.O. is the probability that it is not free from manipulation by the rich for the rich.
Slowly the realisation has dawned that aid and technical assistance make little sense unless world trading patterns are reorganised to remove the disadvantages suffered by the developing world. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development was seen as the great hope here. Two years after the second session of U.N.C.T.A.D., the worst misgivings seem to be confirmed. The will for radical change is lacking among the privileged minority. They have indulged in debate among themselves on the comparative advantages of "organisations des marches", as supported by the French, and supplementary finance, as favoured by ourselves and Sweden.
The developing countries for their part, after all the hopes of the Group of 77, failed to act decisively as a group. One observer has said:
The 77 will unite to vote on generalities, but they negotiate for their own particular interests.
This may be unavoidable when different developing countries are at different stages of industrialisation, and when some developing countries are consumers and others producers of particular commodities, but it is no less disappointing for that.
It is against this background that we must study the findings of Sir Robert Jackson. He condemns the proliferation of specialised agencies, and demonstrates that they are guilty of empire-building and of far too little co-ordination. He confirms the suspicion of many observers that they tend to be administratively top-heavy, with too much of their resources going into remote headquarters and too little into really effective work in the field. He argues that good members of staff, of whom there are plenty, have become disillusioned and frustrated, and that be-because of their imperfections the agencies are not attracting new personnel of sufficiently high calibre. Conditions of service and long-term career prospects must be improved, and the restrictive, counter-productive commitment to national quota systems and political lobbying in staff appointments must be reviewed.
While recognising the politically less representative nature of the World Bank and the International Development Organisation, both only loosely related to the United Nations, he contrasts their effectiveness with the tortuous and cumbersome operation of the U.N. agencies themselves. He details the interminable time between the conception of a U.N. project and the implementation, frequently several years, and points out that by the time it starts it may no longer be relevant in its original form. He goes on to suggest that even once it has begun it is liable to be badly handled, and that second phase projects are too often not the logical extension of a successful first-stage but an attempt to put right the mistakes of the first attempt.
There is a desperate need not so much for administrative theories on project evaluation but for experts of the right ability to do it effectively. Referring to what he calls
…the great inertia of this elaborate administrative structure …
and to the lack of firm overall control, he describes how
… below headquarters, the administrative tentacles thrust downwards into an extraordinary complex of regional and sub-regional offices".
He continues:
The machine as a whole has become unmanageable in the strictest use of the word. As a result, it is becoming slower and more unwieldly, like some prehistoric monster".
Sir Robert is no defeatist. His essential determination and faith shine through the report—the world is interdependent; we live or die together; we must hammer out effective international institutions together. He looks at the vastly expensive and technologically sophisticated arms race and declares:
Never before has mankind destroyed so much of its inheritance so quickly. We still have time to do the most constructive job in the history of the world".
To do this job we must face the facts. We cannot conveniently overlook the mistakes of the past. He recommends a greatly strengthened United Nations Development Programme which should be given the financial resources and power to control and co-ordinate the activities of the various U.N. agencies in what he calls
… a United Nations Development Corporation cycle".

He asks us to remember that the objective of development is demonstrable progress in individual developing countries. Thus, the U.N. programme should be decentralised on a country by country basis, with key liaison between agencies and the government concerned, handled by a U.N. resident representative with overall responsibility for U.N. operations. The present pattern of sometimes competing representatives from individual agencies should be eliminated. It is worth noting that, on this, some experts are already arguing that the coordination should be on a regional rather than on a national basis.
To support this new structure, Sir Robert favours the creation of a streamlined information system designed speedily to supply technical, economic and social information wherever it is needed and to keep each part of the operation in touch with what the other parts are doing. Within this framework for action, the report believes that the U.N.'s priorities should be in the pre-investment and technical assistant spheres.
Sir Robert Jackson demonstrates that there is no room for despair. It would be absurd to ditch the international approach simply because of its inadequacies to date. By comparison, the machinery of national government hardly dazzles with effectiveness. To retreat exclusively into regional multi-lateral exercises would have unfortunate political consequences for international relations as a whole. Of course, the world is interdependent, both economically and strategically, and the sooner our policies reflect this the better.
It was President Kennedy who, in his inaugural address, referred to the U.N. as "our last best hope" and went on:
… in an age where the instruments of war far outpace the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run".
Today 90 per cent. of the men and women working for U.N. organisations are engaged on tasks concerned with economic and social affairs. More than 80 per cent. of the money spent by the U.N. is devoted to projects intended to raise living standards, particularly in the "third" world.
If the shortcomings are to be overcome, we politicians must accept our direct responsibility. It is easy to criticise, but how many who do so recognise the degree of self-criticism in which they are indulging? How many legislators know the precise titles of the principal U.N. agencies, let alone have any detailed knowledge of their policies and work?
Who are the faceless men who speak on our behalf at meetings of the governing bodies? What constructive thought goes on in the legislatures of Member countries about the scope and priorities of the agencies? How often is the mandate to our delegations a general "For heavens' sake, keep the budget increase down", and little else besides? What real guidance do we give, or are equipped to give, to the technocrats of the permanent staffs?
It cannot be too frequently repeated that the U.N. and its agencies have no basis except in their membership. We in this House are part of the United Nations. It behoves Her Majesty's Government, committed as they are to the U.N. and development, to publish in an early White Paper their comments on Sir Robert Jackson's thoughts.

3 a.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Overseas Development (Mr. Ben Whitaker): We are all, I am sure, extremely grateful—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member has intervened in this debate before. He can intervene now only by leave of the House, which he must ask for.

Mr. Whitaker: With the leave of the House, I seek to speak again.
We are all, I am sure, extremely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) for raising this extremely important subject, albeit at such a late hour. It seems that we must wait to hear the views of the Liberals or any other opposition party on this extremely important subject on some other occasion. I hope that, in addition to the excellent and admirable summary of the report which my hon. Friend gave, hon. Members who are interested in the subject will take the opportunity to read it. A copy has

already been placed in the Library of the House.
The report itself comes out at a very opportune time because it is in many senses complementary to the other report which is very crucial in this field, that of the Pearson Commission. Many hon. Members, I know, feel that the United Nations in general is debated far too rarely in our Parliament. As my hon. Friend reminded us, not everyone realises that altogether over 80 per cent. of the United Nations personnel and resources are being devoted quietly day by day to constructive economic and social development, and this is a matter which receives almost no Press or public attention in comparison with the much smaller proportion of the United Nations effort which takes place in political debate.
I would very much like to endorse and welcome what my hon. Friend said in the House on Monday in the debate on Nigeria, that those who are showing such genuine concern about starvation and medical problems in that one sector in Africa will continue their interest and deepen their examination of the problems of a similar nature which are taking place in many parts of the world year in and year out.
I am sure that we are all grateful in this House to Sir Robert Jackson for the work he put into this report and the remarkable speed with which he produced it. I think many hon. Members on both sides of the House would like to pay tribute to the work he and his distinguished wife contribute in this field, both of whom are known to many hon. Members in all parts of the House.
The report itself deals with a highly complex system, and its proposals are necessarily very complicated. They involve all the United Nations agencies, and, ipso facto, the very large number of Governments who are members of them. Since the objects directly concerned are international organisations, the directives to which they work have to be the subject of intergovernmental agreement.
So far, the Governing Council of the U.N. Development Programme, which is now in session in New York, has held only a preliminary exchange of provisional views on the subject of the report. The first substantive discussion of the study will be at a special session of the governing council which is scheduled for


March this year. At the present stage the views of the British Government on the report are still necessarily only provisional, but as my right hon. Friend the Minister told the House on 22nd January, in answer to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), she is hoping to discuss the report in the United States and in Canada next month when she visits there.
We should wish, in formulating our own views, to take into account those of other Governments participating in the U.N. Development System, both of the developed and of the developing world. Since the whole purpose of the U.N. Development System is to help the developing countries, the reaction of those countries to the report's proposals will be of the utmost and most crucial importance. We all agree that it is essential that those in the developing countries should in no way think that the donor countries are forcing a new plan of their own but that there should be broad agreement between the donor and developing countries on the new system.

Mr. Judd: I agree that the Government must take into account the views of the Governments of developing countries and their representatives. Can my lion. Friend assure the House that before the Government irrevocably commit themselves to a particular line on the report they will take into account the considered views of the House?

Mr. Whitaker: Indeed. Everything that my hon. Friend has said will be studied with the close attention with which we study anything that he says on this subject, about which he is extremely knowledgeable. I only wish that other hon. Members had contributed their views, so that we could have learned them as well.
The objective of the British Government should be the urgent consideration of how the system should be reorganised and streamlined so as to increase its capacity and improve the quality of the aid it provides. The initial reaction of the British Government is one of broad agreement with the study's diagnosis, to the effect that the U.N. Development System is at present under strain, but none of the proposals contained in the report is ammunition and argument for those who are dedicated enemies of the

United Nations. As my noble Friend Lord Caradon said at another place in the building last week, when my hon. Friend was also present, those who do not like the tune a piano is playing should not in any way be thereby encouraged to abolish music itself.
The achievement, in providing a vast range of technical assistance, of the organisations concerned, most of which were designed for quite different purposes, has been remarkable. Undue emphasis has been placed in some Press reports on the weaknesses in the system disclosed by the report, although articles in the Economist and The Times on 6th and 10th December respectively gave better balanced accounts. Sir Robert Jackson has stated publicly that he considers that 80 per cent. of the United Nation's work in this field is highly competent.
But we agree that if the system as a whole is to grow, as we on this side very much hope that it will, it must be reorganised and streamlined. We in Britain have a considerable stake in this, as our annual voluntary contributions to the U.N.D.S. now amount to over £7 million.
We also agree with the main premise of the study that the object should be to reform the United Nations Development System rather than destroy it, and begin to build again ab initio. We have not yet completed our examination of all the study's 66 recommendations, but, in general, we think that most of them are along the right lines to achieve the objective of making the United Nations development machinery more efficient and increasing its capacity. Not surprisingly, however, we may have to quarrel with one or two of them and suggest modifications of others.
We agree in principle with the recommendation that the United Nations Development System should continue to be pre-eminent in the field of technical assistance, including pre-investment studies, whilst the World Bank Group should have pre-eminence in the field of capital investment. But we are very much in agreement with the study when it says that the closest co-operation between the two systems will be necessary. Indeed, it is vitally important that the issues at stake should not be regarded in any way as a struggle for power or


a matter for demarcation disputes between, say, the U.N.D.P. and the specialised agencies or the U.N.D.P. and the I.B.R.D. These bodies are the servants and not the masters of member Governments of the United Nations, and hence it is essential that member Governments speak with the same voice in the governing bodies of the different organisations of which they are members.
To conclude, we do not see the agencies as having a lesser rôle to play if the Jackson recommendations are adopted. We, as members of all the agencies as well as of the U.N.D.P. Governing Council, have an interest in ensuring that all parts of the system have a full rôle to play, and, given increased efficiency, we on this side of the House have on many occasions stated our determination that a higher proportion of our aid programme could and should be devoted to multilateral programmes. But the rate at which we can move in this direction will, to some extent, depend on the speed at which the reforms which we are discussing can be implemented. My hon. Friend will know that we have already increased the proportion of the British programme in the multilateral direction from 10 to 15 per cent., and the implementation of the Jackson Report will obviously be a determining factor in deciding how much faster we can move in the same direction.
I hope that the Jackson Report will be widely read at home and abroad, and not least by hon. Members, and that there will be increased discussion of the extremely important, albeit technical, arguments put forward. Most of all, I hope that early action will be taken on its lessons and that the report will not be put away in a pigeon hole to gather dust but that on such a crucially important subject action will follow very speedily on the production of the report.

Mr. Speaker: I would remind those who have joined this marathon debate that we are about to begin the tenth of 23 debates. So far, 49 hon. Members have spoken because most of them responded to my appeal for brief speeches.

SCOTLAND (EDUCATION)

3.12 a.m.

Mr. George Younger: I am very grateful for the opportunity, although the hour is late, to talk about the subject of the expansion of education in Scotland.
Both the main political parties are committed to the steady expansion of education in Scotland, and the object of this debate is to take stock of the progress we are making towards our objectives. The main objective which overshadows all others at this moment is the raising of the compulsory school-leaving age from 15 to 16. This was originally adopted by the last Conservative Government to be implemented in 1970, but, unfortunately, the present Government had to abandon this date because of shortage of money and resources; but they are now pledged to implement this reform in 1972. This is, therefore, a critical moment to take stock of our progress towards this aim and to ask whether the Government have learned the lessons of their earlier postponement so that there may be no doubt this time that in 1972 it will happen.
Let us first look at the total expenditure on education in Scotland and see what the trends have been. It increased between 1965 and 1969 by about 40 per cent. in its face value. This might make us feel quite satisfied.
However, it has to be said that this is nothing particularly new, for the increase in the four years 1960 to 1964 was almost exactly the same—39·6 per cent. We must, therefore, look at these figures in the light of the rises in the cost of living during the respective periods if we are to see the true meanings of their real value to education, and the real value is what is critical.
Between 1960 and 1964, applying the factor of the rises in the cost of living during that time, the real value increased by about 24·4 per cent. Between 1965 and 1969, under the present Government, the cost of living has risen greatly, by an average of 4·7 per cent. a year, and this is the factor which has to be applied to get the real value of education expenditure in those four years, and it is found to have increased by only 12·5 per cent. In real terms, therefore, the rate


of expansion has been slashed by approxiper cent. This can be regarded only as mately half, from 24·4 per cent. to 12·5 extremely serious if we mean to carry out the policies which the Government accept as their aim.
We must look at the educational problems which the Government are facing in the light of this expenditure. The number of pupils for whom we are catering is now rising again. In 1960–64, when the growth of expenditure in real terms was double what it is now, the number of pupils in Scottish secondary schools was more or less static. There was an increase over that period of only 0·18 per cent. In the four years up to 1969, it increased sharply, by approximately 4·9 per cent. Taking only pupils in secondary schools, where the impact of the raising of the school-leaving age will be greatest, the contrast is even more marked, the first period showing a drop of 2·6 per cent. and the second a rise of 8·3 per cent.
Expenditure per pupil tells the story in perhaps a more eloquent way, for this increased between 1960 and 1964 from £352 to £450, a rise of nearly £100, whereas in the latest four years under the present Government it rose from £450 to only £468, a rise of only £18.
I turn to expenditure on school building where we have had some good years and some disappointing years recently. Here, again, the story is of growth slowed down. Since 1964, under the present Government, work done annually on school building has increased from £23 million to £35 million, an increase of more than 48 per cent. However, this compares with an increase of no less than 78 per cent. in face value between 1960 and 1964; that is, from £13 million to £23 million. Moreover, the present Government's increase of more than £11 million between the annual figures for 1964 and 1968 has to be modified by the very steep rise in building costs during the period, and on a conservative estimate that £11 million must be reduced by soriething more than £5 million if it is to be expressed in real terms.
If proof were needed of the rise in building costs, it is plain to see in the costs of providing school places. This has risen from £343 in 1964 to no less than £422 in 1968, an increase of 23 per cent., which happens to correspond

closely with the published figure of the increase in building costs generally during that period.
It is against that background that the needs of education authorities in Scotland must be seen. Those authorities have the task of implementing the Government's policies on the ground. They are assessing their needs and asking the Government for the resources to carry them out in this critical few years. How are they getting on? I believe that there is mounting evidence that they will not get the resources that they believe they need to do the job.
For example, Lanarkshire has recently been in the news, having had its original requests for the period 1970–72 reduced by £2 million. West Lothian, having said that it needed £2,060,000 over the next two years, has so far been given only £500,000, or less than one-quarter of what it requested. Renfrewshire, having said that it needed £3,260,000 over the next two years, has so far been restricted to only £2,300,000. The county convener of Renfrewshire has publicly stated that this is not adequate to his needs in carrying out the policies which are required to be carried out.
Ayrshire has had its original needs reduced from £5,700,000 to £4,300,000, according to a Parliamentary Answer to me only yesterday, or a cut of 25 per cent. Wigtownshire, concerning which a Parliamentary Answer was given yesterday to my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis), has had its original application reduced from £1,400,000, which it considered was necessary, and has so far been given only £80,000 in the first of the two years concerned.
Glasgow is the greatest problem of all. It has to cope with the brunt of the teacher shortage and the problems of massive redevelopment all over the city, not to mention the fact that many children in the city have today to make do with part-time education. If ever there was an educational priority area, it surely is, and must be, Glasgow. Its need, however, according to the education authority, is £23 million for school building over the next few years, yet this has been restricted in the first year to £2½ million, and in the second year it looks as though it will get only about £6,698.000. Glasgow, too, has made it


clear that it cannot meet its obligations within these totals of what appears to be available.
Surely, all this evidence points to the conclusion that at this critical time for Scottish education, facing, as it is, its greatest challenge in a generation with the raising of the school-leaving age, the resources made available for education by the Government are dangerously thin for the job that has to be done.
The growth in education, instead of increasing faster as was expected, is actually slowing down severely. Unless the Government realise this now and take action before it is too late, we shall be reduced once more to relying on our education authorities and teachers to step into the breach and muddle through somehow when the crisis of staffing and accommodation becomes acute in three or four years' time.
All Governments have to be careful in their expenditure, and inevitably have to refuse all sorts of desirable aims in the interests of economy. The tragedy of the present Government is that their appalling mismanagement of the economy and their failure to get growth make them unable to provide the money which is so clearly necessary if education is to he expanded as we all want. It is essential that the Government should realise this now and rearrange their priorities so that the growth rate in education can again increase.
I was glad to hear my right hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) say last Wednesday, in the debate on public expenditure, that he regarded education as one of the top priorities for the future. I hope that this debate will at least show that there is real cause for concern at the resources available to carry out our aims. Money spent on education is a direct investment in our future. We shall neglect this to our peril in the years to come.

3.25 a.m.

Mr. Ian MacArthur: The House will be very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) for raising tonight the general question of the expansion of education, and for bringing forward facts and statistics which illustrated his argument so admirably. I hope that

the Minister will take careful note of the figures which my hon. Friend has given, and make some reply to the general argument tonight. My hon. Friend referred in some detail to the progress of the school building programme, and I want to refer to one or two of those points, and also to put some other questions to the Minister.
My hon. Friend reminded the House that the Government's programme of economic mismanagement caused the raising of the school-leaving age to be postponed from 1970 to 1972. It was a sad consequence of incompetence, but it must have brought relief to the Secretary of State for Scotland, for it was clear that the school building programme, so long delayed, would not be completed by 1970. The decision to postpone the date by two years has got the Secretary of State off the hook. It has given him two extra years in which to prepare for this educational challenge.
The building programme was lengthened, as the Minister reminded us a few months ago. It is appropriate now, early in 1970, the year when the leaving age was to have been raised, that we should take stock of the position and determine the extent to which the school building needs of 1972 will be met.
The Minister himself is in no doubt. I asked him last Wednesday if the final allocations for the period up to 1972 would meet the needs of the local education authorities and enable them to be ready for the raising of the school-leaving age. He replied:
Yes, I can give that assurance."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 486.]
This simple answer had a cheering ring of confidence, but if we look at the evidence so far available it sounds more like unjustified complacency.
The House will recall that the Government allowed the school building programme in Scotland to fall alarmingly during their first years in office. The position improved later on when we entered the 1967–1970 period. There was a high completion rate last year, and we can expect a high completion rate this year also. That appears satisfactory, but it is clear that the rate of completions will fall after this year, and that is because the rate of approvals last year was


halved. During the first 11 months of 1968 the value of school building approved was £26–5 million. During the first 11 months of 1969 the value fell by half to £13–7 million.
The Minister has argued that a fall in approvals was to be expected, because, in his view, the main bulk of approvals and starts for the meeting of the raising of the school-leaving age had already been given to education authorities so that the accommodation would be ready in good time. If we accept this argument, that the main bulk of need has been catered for, it must follow that the balance of need will be met between now and 1972 despite the sharp fall in the approval rate.
Also, if the Minister was justified in claiming last Wednesday that local authorities' needs would be met in full, it follows that allocations made to them for the period 1970–72 will be sufficient for those authorities to finance their needs. But I question this. The allocations for this period were to be made in two instalments. The first instalment has been made, but the second instalment has still to be announced, despite the fact that the Minister indicated last July that it could be expected by the end of 1969. Clearly, we will not know the whole position until these final allocations are made but the information we have received so far hardly justifies the Minister's claim that all will be well.
My hon. Friend has given alarming figures showing the wide gap between the local authorities' assessments of their needs and the allocations so far made to them. I will take just one of these examples and ask for further information about it. The case of Glasgow was raised in Written Questions yesterday by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galbraith). The Secretary of State blandly said in his answers to this and similar Questions that the education authorities were not asked to submit estimates of their total school building requirements. An answer of that kind is not good enough.
Even if no formal written submission was required, the right hon. Gentleman must have obtained some other form of estimate. If so, he should provide the information which is clearly what my hon. Friends were seeking, and in order to encourage him to do so I have tabled

a Question for answer next Monday. If the right hon. Gentleman did not ask the local authorities for any form of estimate, how can he assess their needs? If he has not asked them to define their needs, on what basis did the Minister assure us last Wednesday that those needs would be met? Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will assist us by explaining the sequence of events at Glasgow.
Yesterday the Secretary of State said, in his reply, that the Glasgow Education Authority was not asked to submit an estimate. But he went on to say that last November the authority discussed with his Department what he described as lists of projects for the two-year period 1970–72, totalling some £23 million. What was the nature of these lists? Did they not, in fact, represent the local authority's estimate of need? He went on:
The authority later drew up a programme amounting to £2·5 million in the first part of the period and £6·698 million in the second part."—[OFFICE, REPORT, 26th January, 1970; Vol. 794, c. 268.]
What is the significance of the word "later"? What took place during the earlier discussions about the £23 million list? What pressure was put on the local authority by the Department? What cuts were made and what was the instigation to reduce the total figure to just over £9 million? What proposals were cut out in order to make this reduction of £14 million? The right hon. Gentleman's answer stated that the revised programme of £2·5 million for the first part of the period has been met by an allocation of £2·5 million. On this revised basis, over £6 million remains to be met by the second allocation.
Perhaps we can be told whether that sum will be provided. But even if the second allocation meets this programme of over £6 million, we must be told precisely how the original estimate fell by £14 million. This mystery of the vanishing schools must be cleared up. The House must be told which schools are now not to be built, in what circumstances they were removed from the list of projects and how this strange answer of the Secretary of State can conform with the hon. Gentleman's apparent assurance last Wednesday that the local authorities' needs would be met in full.
Our purpose in raising these matters tonight is to seek information. I know that the hon. Gentleman is determined not


to put the raising of the school-leaving age in jeopardy yet again by lack of preparation. The assurance that I seek, and that I would welcome, is that his determination will be matched by his performance, and it is on that point that I have some doubt.
I have concentrated my remarks on school building but what matters at least as much is what is taught in the buildings and the quality of the teaching. We shall discuss in another debate the curriculum for the children who stay on for the extra year at school.
The teacher problem is also serious. We know only too well that there will be a shortage of secondary school teachers in Scotland in 1972. The figures I am about to give are those of the total estimated shortage. In some areas and in some subjects the shortage will be even more acute than the total figures suggest. Further, figures by themselves cannot illustrate the extra strain those who will be teaching the older children staying on for the extra year will have to bear. Many of these children will be reluctant pupils, therefore, there will be a great difficulty in teaching them. In an Answer last Wednesday the Minister told me that he estimated a shortage of 1,800 secondary school teachers in 1972. Last July his estimate was a shortage of 800. That estimate was made after the Government study on teacher deployment.
The Minister will, I hope, interrupt me if I have interpreted these figures wrongly, but I have checked them just now and that is my reading of them. What, then, has happened to cause this large change in the estimate of shortage? Why has the estimate been more than doubled in six months? What new factors have emerged from the Government's continuing study of the position? The Minister will appreciate our concern about this apparent inflation of the shortage estimate in such a brief time.
Further, the estimate last July was that the shortage would increase from 800 in 1972 to 2,800 in 1973. The shortage for the first year is now estimated at 1,800. What is the Minister's estimate of the shortage in 1973? If the shortage in 1972 is to be 1,000 more than was estimated six months ago, does it follow that the shortage in 1973 will be similarly increased to 3,800? If so, what

steps will the Minister take to meet this problem? Will he hold further discussions with the teachers, because it is they who will carry the consequential burden?
Since we last debated education in Scotland we have had the benefit of the public expenditure White Paper, which we debated last week. This makes surprisingly small provision for growth of educational expenditure at the very time that the educational system will be subjected to unusual strains. There is a general contingency reserve, but if we consider the growth that there has been in educational expenditure over the years, and the inevitability of continuing growth, even without these additional strains, there must be some questioning of the basis of the Government's calculations.
We must also ask if the needs of the local education authorities, the teachers and the children in their care can be fully met. My hon. Friend reminded us just now that the real increase in expenditure on education in Scotland rose over the years 1961–62 to 1964–65 by 24·4 per cent. Over the three years starting in 1965–66 the increase in real terms fell to 12·5 per cent. We now find that this lower rate in real terms is to be continued during these coming years, just as the school-leaving age is raised. Indeed, the rate will be slightly lower. The projected increase in Scotland for the three years 1968–69—1971–72 is 12·1 per cent. It appears, therefore, that education may receive a lower priority in the allocation of Governmental expenditure.
My hon. Friend rightly said that money spent on education is not simply money spent but is money invested in the development of the brains and skills which our country will increasingly require. He rightly emphasised the need for expansion in education, and it is depressing to note, in the light of this White Paper, that the rate of expansion, already halved by this Government, shows no sign of responding to the growing pressure on our educational system.

2.40 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Bruce Milian): I had understood that when the hon. Member for Ayr (Mr. Younger) chose this subject for debate he wanted to turn his mind


to some of the problems involved in the raising of the school-leaving age in 1972. I am sorry to say that nothing in his speech contained the slightest hint of a constructive suggestion for dealing with any of the problems which will arise in that connection, and certain areas of the problem he left out completely. He said nothing about teacher supply, nothing about curricular development. I grant that his hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacAn hur) said something about teacher supply, but I found nothing of a constructive nature in his remarks, either.
The hon. Member for Ayr seemed to feel that we ought to spend more money on education. He has a habit of saying that we ought to be spending more money on virtually everything else in Scotland. It is an extraordinary attitude for the hon. Gentleman and hon. Members opposite to take on all these items that what is wrong with Scotland is that we are not spending enough money. This comes from hon. Gentlemen who at the same time feel that taxation is too high and that we ought to reduce public expenditure.
I need not elaborate on the incompatibility and hypocrisy of this attitude. Since it is well documented, I can be excused from doing so at this early hour of the morning.

Mr.:MacArthur: Mr.:MacArthur rose—

Mr. Millan: I will not give way. I have hardly begun yet.
Without going into the various figures, which, incidentally, I do not accept, I wish to make a point on the matter of expenditure. The hon. Gentlemen opposite made great play of the increase in expenditure not being significant. I should like to know in what particular areas of expenditure over the last few years in education in Scotland they feel we have been deficient. This is quite apart from the matter of school building, to which I shall come in a moment. I should be interested to hear about them since there has been no question of any particular complaint on this score.
It is not my impression that education authorities in Scotland, whatever other complaints they may have made against the Government in education policy or practice in the last few years, have made

any serious complaints about the Government in terms of the amount of money they have been allowed to spend on educational expansion. There are sometimes difficulties about school building, but, apart from that, I am not aware that education authorities in Scotland feel that they have not been able to do what they want to do in terms of teacher recruitment and educational expenditure generally. I have no reason to believe that the position will change in the few years covered by the White Paper on expenditure.
To come to the complaint about school building, I will give a little of the background. I would remind the House that in 1966 the Secretary of State announced that education authorities in Scotland would be authorised to start school building projects to a total value of £24 million a year, which was later increased to £26 million a year, in each of the years 1967 to 1970. This was not, of course, a reduction in expenditure, but a considerable increase, because the rate before the announcement was made was running at about £17 million. That was the kind of programme that we inherited from the party opposite. The increase to £26 million was rather more than a 50 per cent. increase.
In January, 1968, the decision was taken to defer the raising of the school-leaving age by two years to 1972–73. Subsequently, there were some adjustments in the school building programmes of the local education authorities, hut these adjustments were minimal.
Before the adjustments resulting from the deferment of the school-leaving age, in the three years to 1970—for which the original programme was about £78 million—the amount of building starts is likely to be something like £89 million. In other words, far from the programme being cut or held back, by 1970 it is likely to be ahead of schedule. As I said in answer to a Parliamentary Question last week, we have been happy that this progress has been made. It means that many of the major projects which are required for raising the school-leaving age have been able to start earlier than they are required for the deferred raising of the age in 1972–73, and will be ready in good time.
I made it clear in my speech in the Scottish Grand Committee in July, 1969,


that, because of the considerable increase in the period up to 1970, if we took the whole programme period as we were then looking at it, as a five-year programme from 1967 to 1972, and maintained the rate of starts in that five-year period at an average of about £25 million a year, in the two years remaining from 1970 to 1972 the amount of starts which would be expected would inevitably be at a lower level than in the period which we are just finishing up to March, 1970.
It is remarkable that we should be having these complaints about what is inaccurately described as a cut-back or run-down in the school-building programme, when the fact is that when I announced this in July, 1969, it caused virtually no comment. I announced it in the course of a debate in the Scottish Grand Committee, and there was virtually no debate on this. That was because it was recognised by all hon. Gentlemen at that time that we were dealing with a very considerable school building programme. That is still the case.
As for the period from 1970 to 1972, in August, 1969, we issued a circular about school-building starts from April, 1970. At that time, we gave provisional figures for the first part of the period 1970–72. Apart from some of the malicious interpretations of the school-building programme by hon. Gentlemen opposite and others, there has been a certain amount of genuine misunderstanding. The figures which have been allocated so far refer only to the first part of the period from 1970 to 1972. When we sent out the circular, we asked the authorities to tell us which further projects they thought they required in the remainder of the five-year period, taking us up to 1972, to make adequate provision for the raising of the school-leaving age. We said that we would take account of those lists of projects in making the allocations for the second part of the period.
The reason why the allocations for the second part of the period have not been made, although I hoped originally that that might have been done by the end of 1969, is simply that we have been taking account of the various representations made to us by local education authorities in the lists of projects which they have sent us. But I hope that we shall,

within the next month, be able to send the allocations for the second part of the period to the authorities concerned.
It is fairly clear from this explanation that it is not possible in any meaningful way to talk about authorities not being given enough money to meet what they think are the demands on school building for the raising of the school leaving age until the second part of the allocations has been made and the authorities are able to see what the total allocation for the two-year period will be. When that has been done, each individual authority can see, and we can see for Scotland as a whole, how the allocations that have been made are likely to match what the authorities and what we in the Department consider are the requirements for the raising of the school-leaving age.
I was asked about Glasgow specifically. Because of the explanation that I have given, I do not think I need go into the Glasgow figures in any detail. However, since the figure of £23 million for the two years has been quoted, may I say that I have met the authority about this and I consider it to be a completely unrealistic figure for a two-year programme. We have only to consider it in relation to the Scottish figures that I have mentioned, which are record figures in terms of the five-year period between 1967 and 1972, to see that it is completely unrealistic to talk in terms of starting secondary projects to the value of £23 million in Glasgow over a period of two years. If I had said to Glasgow, "Go ahead and do that", there is not the slightest chance that it would have been able to start anything like that amount over a two-year period.
When I met the Glasgow education authority I said that I should like its officials and mine to go over its lists of secondary projects as it saw them to see whether we could have a revised programme which the authority felt would meet the needs of the raising of the school-leaving age. That revised programme was also quoted in the answer that I gave on Monday this week. The allocations to Glasgow for the second part of the 1970/72 period will have to wait until all the allocations for all the authorities in Scotland are given in the near future.
On the general question of school building progress in Scotland, approvals


and starts over the period from 1970 to 1972 are likely to run down from the extremely high levels that we have been working to. But in terms of completions the figures are now going up substantially. This is sensible. We have to have high approvals and starts figures to gel high completion figures for completed buildings for the raising of the school-leaving age.
While completions at the secondary level in the 11 months to November, 1968, were only £7 million, in the 11 months to November, 1969, they were £18½ million. In other words, we are getting the completions that we require for the raising of the school-leaving age.
A tremendous number of schools are now being built. The total amount of school building under construction, for example, at the end of November, 1969, was £47 million, compared with £31 million at the end of 1967, so there is a tremendous amount still to come. If we take the number of school places rather than the financial figures, again the figures are very impressive. For example, in secondary projects in 1966 22,000 places were started; in 1967 27,000 were started; in 1968 52,000 places were started, and in the first 11 months of 1969 42.000 places were started.
So the figures show an increase which will be reflected in the figures of completions that we shall have up to 1972. I therefore say that on the school building side—and this confirms the answer that I gave last week—I am confident that the problems of accommodation will be met by the time the raising of the school Leaving age takes place.
When I say that, I am not pretending that there will not be any difficulties in particular authorities and in particular schools. Whenever a major change of this sort takes place, it is inevitable that there are difficulties in particular places. It would be unrealistic to think that we can avoid these altogether. I have no doubt that many authorities will feel that in their schools the problems are very difficult of solution. But I make the point again that, generally speaking, this will not be true. We shall have provided the accommodation for the raising of the school-leaving age, and any problems, however difficult they may appear to the authorities concerned, will be manageable, and in many cases will be

strictly temporary in the initial stages of the raising of the age.
I turn, briefly, to the question of teacher supply, which was raised by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perth-shire. This is a very substantial subject indeed, with considerable implications for the raising of the age, and for a number of other things, too. The only point that was really put to me was about the difference between the estimate that I gave in an answer last July about what the shortage of secondary teachers might be in 1972–73, and the estimate which I gave a week ago, which showed an increase. There are a number of reasons for this. I think that perhaps I might remind the hon. Gentleman that the estimates of teacher surplus and shortage which I gave last July were very considerably different from those which had been published in our 1967 annual report. What is more, the figures given last July provided, on the whole, a very much more encouraging picture compared with those published in the 1967 report.
The reason for this increase in the secondary field is not a simple one. There are a number of complex factors involved, but there are two which I ought to mention. First, there is the increased tendency to stay on beyond the compulsory school-leaving age, something that we keep getting manifestations of as newer figures become available. Second, there are changes in the Government Actuary's forecast of the school population.
One reason for this is that because we are reducing emigration the number of children staying on at school is likely to be higher. This is an incidental effect of the reduction in emigration, and it has an effect on the estimates of teacher demand. It does not have an effect on teacher supply figures because during this short period these have not been subjected to the same kind of adjustments. However, there is this increased demand, leading to different figures for shortage.
The figure of shortage is increased in 1972–73 from 800 to 1,800, and in 1973–74 from 2,800 to 3,100, a very much smaller increase. In other words, the position will be rather worse in 1972–73, and not very much worse in 1972–73 compared with the previous estimate, but these figures are worrying, and the House


and hon. Gentlemen opposite know the various measures which the Government are taking to deal with them.
There is nothing in anything that has happened over the last six months to make the overall assessments of the difficulties of teacher supply very much different from those which I gave in the debate in the Scottish Grand Committee in July last year. I said then that although this was a difficult problem, and that I was much less optimistic about solving it—I was dealing with the difficulties in school building—nevertheless I thought that with the various measures which the Government were taking, and with the better information that we would have available—and that information will be improved considerably by the staffing survey which was carried out last week, the results of which will be available in about two months' time—the problem was manageable.
To sum up, I do not accept that expenditure has not been sufficient to meet the demands which the local authorities have been putting to us. I do not accept that we shall be faced with an unmanageable school building situation in 1972–73. On the teacher supply side, we shall have serious difficulties, but the measures which the Government have already taken and will take between now and 1972–73 will reduce the problem to manageable proportions, enabling us to raise the school-leaving age an objective which all of us on both sides want to achieve—and thus make a considerable improvement in Scottish education from which the children concerned will gain a substantial educational benefit.

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are about to begin the 11th of 23 debates. So far, 53 hon. Members have spoken, since most of them have responded to my appeal for brief speeches. At the present rate, if nothing happens, we should finish by six o'clock in the evening. I appeal again for reasonably brief speeches.

TEACHERS' SALARIES

4.1 a.m.

Mr. David Lane: I am glad to see the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State here brightening the dark time before the dawn, but this is a

sad subject to be discussing—particularly for you, Mr. Speaker—and an unhappy chapter in the story of British education. In many ways, the situation is unprecedented, and the latest phase in the strikes started only yesterday.
It is right that we should take the opportunity of a short debate, because of the angry feelings among teachers and the great concern among the public. I hope that we shall ventilate the matter at a fairly low temperature, so that nothing said here this morning will aggravate a situation which is already bad enough.
To summarise my own point of view, I strongly support a better deal for teachers in both salaries and status. They have a good case, on the whole, though I do not wish now to commit myself to any particular figure as being right. However, as I have told the teachers in my constituency, I regret the strikes. It is a pity that they started when negotiations had not actually broken down. Strikes are unsettling and a bad example to children, as well as an inconvenience to the parents. Third, I hope very much that there will be a fair settlement soon, before feelings become still more embittered on all sides.
I shall not go over much of the ground, but merely touch on some of the salient points. It is fair to say that no one involved in this episode has covered himself with glory. I take, first, the Government's part in it. They must bear a large share of the blame. It is the prices and incomes policy which is really responsible, and from the rigidity of that policy and, in particular, the way it has affected them, much of the teachers' indignation stems.
In their reaction, the Government have been clumsy in timing and hesitant in attitude. I do not know whether this is mainly the fault of the Secretary of State and his colleagues or of the Treasury. But I am critical of the Secretary of State—I am sorry he is not here, though I quite understand—because he seemed all too often in the early stages to be shrugging his own responsibility off on to the local authorities when it was clear from the outset that the ultimate responsibility must be the Government's.
However that may be, I believe that the claim would have been settled already if the Government's response had been


prompter and less grudging. But we are dealing with the stage reached today, and I think it fair to say that the Government are now trying to make amends for their earlier mishandling of the problem. The latest offer of arbitration goes a long way towards meeting the legitimate worries of the teachers. The Government have offered a judge as chairman of the arbitration panel, they have committed themselves to accept the findings, and the last offer to the teachers was well above the prices and incomes ceiling.
Second, the management panel as a whole has been in a very difficult position. My local authority and a number of others have been very much in sympathy with the teachers. Local authorities seem to have been caught between the twin grindstones of the teachers' wrath and the Government's clumsiness. It struck me as unwise that the first improved offer which was put to the teachers should be weighted in favour of the junior teachers as against the more experienced career teachers. Many more experienced teachers were indignant about this. In a letter to me, a senior mathematics teacher in Cambridge wrote:
The impression given is clearly one of an education service being administered by men who consider that qualifications and ex-perience are to be penalised rather than honoured.
Third, the teachers themselves. No one can now under-rate the strength of their feelings. In the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters, this was entirely predictable; what is significant is the almost unanimous support they have had from the Assistant Masters Association. It is difficult to blame the teachers for over-militancy when they have seen so many recent examples of militancy succeeding in negotiations.
But I fear there is now a danger of the teachers overplaying their hand and losing public support. One straw in the wind is the poll by Opinion Research Centre, published in the Evening Standard yesterday, showing that a clear majority of the public now regard the £100 offer as fair and think that the teachers were wrong to turn it down.
I can give another small but sad example of the risk of this overplaying. I was shocked to hear on "The World

at One", on the radio on Saturday, a recording of some teachers apparently picketing Sir William Alexander's house and singing a blasphemous parody of the Te Dorm. That is not the way to consolidate the public support which they have enjoyed.
Neither public support nor public money, whether from taxes or from rates, is unlimited. We have read only in the last few days of the new scheme put before the Select Committee for longer and better training of teachers. We know that a substantial new claim is likely to be put forward for next year. Both these things involve big money, and the teachers should reflect that, in their own interests, they need the maximum public good will.
So I hope that the teachers will heed the Secretary of State's renewed appeal today and think again about the offer of arbitration. Are their objections any longer valid? The Government have made considerable concessions here. I would urge the teachers to go to arbitration and, as soon as the arbitration is agreed, call off the strikes.
This dispute has come at a particularly unfortunate time. The argument over the interim claim is poisoning the atmosphere, just when there is a growing queue of major questions to be tackled: the question of the salary structure, the question of the negotiating machinery and whether we can improve the existing Burnham arrangements, the proposal for a teachers' council, and the problem of teacher training generally, about which I understand that only today the National Association of Schoolmasters has put its views to our Select Committee.
We cannot get to grips with these questions while the present dispute drags on. I hope that I am not over-optimistic in seeing a flicker of light. The breakdown in tthe discussions does not seem to be total, and, whether or not the teachers decide to accept arbitration, further meetings within the Burnham machinery are due to take place in the next week or two.
I hope that this will be the message to go out from our short debate. The dispute has already gone on for too long. It is distracting us from other, even more vital, questions, and every week that the strikes continue it is the children above all who suffer. The parties to the dispute


do not seem very far apart. Surely it should not be beyond the statesmanship of the Government, the local authorities and the teachers to find a fair settlement before there is greater disruption of the education system and further damage to the mutual confidence on which the future of British education so much depends.

4.12 a.m.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: We are grateful to the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) for giving us an opportunity to discuss this important subject.
I agree that the last few months have been a sad chapter in British education. We regret what has occurred and the fact that the unions have felt it necessary to strike and take the other action that they have taken. Later I will be critical of all three parties to the Burnham negotiations—the Government, local authorities and teachers—but, first, I wish to comment on two matters about which the teachers have to some extent been unfairly criticised.
First, it is argued that the teachers repudiated the agreement that they freely signed and entered into in March of last year. That agreement was for a 3½ per cent. increase in each of two successive years—7 per cent. in all. It was repudiated very soon after, and a demand for the interim award with which we are concerned was made.
When one studies the facts one can clearly understand why this occurred. The 3½ per cent. agreement was made under duress, in a sense, because that was the maximum that could be awarded under the then prices and incomes policy. But the teachers saw what was happening in other sectors, with other groups getting far more than 3½. per cent., sometimes on spurious productivity arguments. The teachers therefore wondered why they should be one of the only groups confined to what was the then prices and incomes policy.
Secondly, let us consider why they struck while the negotiations were going on. The purpose of a strike is to bring pressure on the employers. The only time that a strike could take place in this instance was while the negotiations were in progress, for, under Burnham,

once negotiations come to a halt the matter is automatically referred—this is the arrangement under the present law—to arbitration.
Without considering whether this strike was or was not justified—we do not have time in this debate to go into that issue—it must be realised that the only time that the teachers could strike with the intention of bringing pressure to bear on the employers was while the negotiations were going on.
It is clear that for many years teachers have been under-valued and under-paid in this country. I give credit to the Government in that during their period of office percentage-wise the teachers have probably done rather better than in any other five years of any previous Government, Labour or Conservative. I believe that £135 for which the teachers are asking is a reasonable request. They have suffered through being too honest. My suspicion is that if they had asked for £200 they would now have received £135, but because they put forward what they regard as a realistic claim and did not go in for the type of bargaining where one asks for twice as much as one thinks one can get, they have suffered.
In an article in The Times, Brian MacArthur, the education correspondent, puts it rather well. He writes:
Accusations have been made that teachers were resorting to the law of the jungle, but it is not the fault of the teachers if they draw the moral that honesty is not the best policy in modern salary bargaining.
On the other hand, I am slightly critical of their present position in arguing that it is £135 or nothing. That does not give any leeway for bargaining. Why have we reached the present impasse? There was perhaps a ray of hope last week.
I was a teacher for many years, and I was engaged in a similar exercise in 1961 when we had the pay pause in the public sector. I can remember then, when acting not as a shop steward, for we did not use that term, but as a school correspondent, desperately trying to persuade my colleagues to stop work for one day to come here to lobby Members of Parliament. It was a very hard job to persuade teachers to do that. The thought of a strike was anathema to them. They hated it, and many still


do. Nevertheless it is significant that in the last few weeks one has found when talking to teachers a very different attitude from that shown when I was teaching. There is a very large measure of support for strike action among teachers today.
We have to ask why this is. I am afraid that the answer is that they have looked at what has happened elsewhere. Last July or August there would not have been anything like the support in the teaching profession for strike action as there was in the autumn. That was because certain things happened in September and October. I am not saying that the dustmen should not have got what they obtained, but they got it through direct strike action. The firemen threatened strike action and the miners used strike action. Teachers reluctantly came to the view that the only way to make their employers, the local authorities, take notice was to take militant action.
I do not want to apportion blame, but I would not put the position in quite the same way as the hon. Member for Cambridge did. I believe that the local authorities have a much bigger responsibility than has perhaps been allowed for. A number of local education committees, including my own, have passed resolutions supporting the teachers, but this attitude has not transferred itself to the Association of Education Committees, led by Sir William Alexander, who in most of his writings, speeches and in the negotiations in Burnham, has shown no real sign that the local authorities want to offer far more than the Government are prepared to allow.
The case will go back to Burnham for straight negotiation. It will be interesting to see to what extent the local authorities are prepared to increase their offer. They tend to talk with two different voices. The A.E.C. says one thing. Individual local authorities say something different.
On the other hand, the Government must take part of the blame. The nigger in the woodpile is possibly the Department of Employment and Productivity rather than the Department of Education and Science. The recent developments in the prices and incomes policy are the real cause. People throughout the public service believe that the prices and incomes

policy is weighted against them. A bank clerk, or a civil servant, or a nurse, or a teacher, cannot prove productivity in the same way as a docker or a motor car worker can. They have seen large increases granted on the grounds of productivity, and some of the productivity deals having been spurious.
The last White Paper, which against my better judgment I voted for, after much persuasion by the Whips—I now very much regret having voted for it—has had an important effect upon the negotiations. The silliest thing that was done in that White Paper was to stipulate a norm. To put a norm of 2½–4½ per cent. in the White Paper was stupid, because nobody will take any notice of it. However, it gave the local authority negotiators in Burnham something to hide behind; they could say, "The Government say that the norm is 4½ per cent. and we cannot offer more". They have now gone slightly above the norm. This norm enabled the local authorities to transfer much of the blame which should have attached to them on to the Department of Education and Science, which was placed in a somewhat difficult position.
Having said that, I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge that the Government and the D.E.S. have in many ways handled this matter rather clumsily throughout. I hope that one lesson which has been learned is that the two Ministry representatives on the Burnham Committee might as well not be there; they are an embarrassment to the Government rather than serving any useful purpose. I hope that legislation will soon be introduced to amend the Act and remove these two representatives from the Burnham Committee.
The teachers must bear some blame. Much of their propaganda was very misguided. It is not surprising that there should be a larger offer at the lower end of the scale and a smaller offer at the higher end of the scale when the whole of the teachers' case has been based on the plight of the young teacher. Some of the propaganda has gone to absurd lengths. There was the young teacher who proclaimed that he could not afford breakfast. Some of the propaganda has done the case more harm than good.
I repeat that, the teachers having claimed that it was the young teacher


who was in real difficulty, it is not surprising that there should be an offer giving more at the bottom end of the scale than at the top end. I cannot understand the unions' reasoning in claiming that this was done in an attempt to split the profession. This is what their propaganda was urging instead of concentrating on the need for an immediate increase followed by a revaluation of teachers' salaries generally.
The Government should step aside from all this and say, "We are prepared to accept whatever decision is arrived at between the local authorities and the unions within the £135 offer." We should then see how genuine the local authorities were in some of the things which they have been saying about how much they would like to go higher but the wicked Government prevented them from doing so.
I should like the Minister to explain what happens if the Burnham negotiations break down. If this goes back to Burnham and the negotiations break down, can it go back to arbitration? I am not sure about the legalities here. The major difficulty about arbitration was that it was thought to be two to one loaded against the unions. The Minister has now put that right. I would not necessarily want a High Court judge to be the independent arbitrator. I would prefer to see someone prominent in another field of education. I can think of all sorts of people who would be more suitable for this job than a High Court judge.
The real fear was that the arbitrator would have to take into account the prices and incomes policy. To what extent that fear has been dispelled I am not sure. Conflicting statements emanate from Curzon Street, the local authorities and the unions on this point.
The solution of the present interim claim will not solve the real problem. There must be a comprehensive look at the salary structure of teachers. There will be differences of opinion inside the profession about what that should be. I would not want this review to be done by the Prices and Incomes Board, because, judging from past reports of the board, it would seem that it bases its case too much on purely economic analyses. I could visualise it saying,

"There is a shortage of maths and science graduates. Therefore, we should pay them more than arts graduates", without taking into account the absolute chaos which that would create in staff rooms.
The Prices and Incomes Board tends to look at these matters in a purely economic sense and to leave out the human element. I am not enamoured of some of its reports on the public services. The report on the universities was not a very bright document, although perhaps it had a few good points.
There must be a major review of salaries. I hope that this dispute will be settled quickly. The strikes are undoubtedly an inconvenience, are causing hardship to a number of people and may seriously endanger the education of the children. If they were to occur during the examinations in the summer, severe damage would be done. I hope that a settlement will be reached before that. I hope that the interim settlement is seen only as the beginning of a major review of salaries which should be started in April this year and come forward in April, 1971.

4.29 a.m.

The Under-Secretary of State to the Department of Education and Science (Miss Joan Lestor): I thank the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. Lane) for giving us the opportunity of discussing the review and the present dispute over salaries. I am grateful to him for the reasonable manner in which he presented his case. I support what he said about better pay and status for teachers. The argument really is about the amount and how to arrive at it. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Mr. R. C. Mitchell) for his comments.
I shall try to be as brief as possible, Mr. Speaker, but you will appreciate that it is very important that the background and the existing situation should be spelled out adequately so that there are no mistakes and the position is understood by those who are interested in it and on whom the future negotiations depend.
My hon. Friend said that he could understand that the teachers felt that the original agreement was unfair in the light of what had happened subsequently. The present Burnham agreement with the


teachers was a voluntary agreement which was to run for two years from 1st April, 1969. It was the first major negotiation for teachers since the Remuneration of Teachers Act, 1965, in which a voluntary agreement was concluded. It gave the teachers 7·1 per cent. overall, some more and some less.
Following this, the National Union of Teachers decided at its conference in Easter, 1969, soon after the agreement, almost before the ink on the agreement was dry, to present an interim claim. I am not saying that an interim claim in the middle of negotiations can never be justified; it depends on the circumstances. But it was in the light of that that the figure of £135 as a flat rate addition to the pay of every teacher was reached.
The teachers calculated in April, 1969, that £135 would be needed to restore their purchasing power to the level of 1st July, 1967. They probably assumed that price increases during 1969–70 would be at the same rate as in the months following devaluation, and I assume that they made their deductions on that basis. If so, they were, in a sense, wrong. During the first few months of the present financial year, for example, the rise in the retail price index was small. At any rate, it is difficult to see how a flat rate increase of £135 can restore to any given level the purchasing power of all teachers. Surely the figure for a teacher on a salary of £1,000 a year is very different from that of the admittedly few teachers with a salary of £4,000 a year.
However, the management panel was ready in October to discuss the interim claim. It was anxious to show good will. The teachers had published a graph purporting to show that the management's offer went up between October and January in step with growing teachers' militancy. The offer was raised, but not because of the strikes. In fact, in November the Management Panel offered the teachers the maximum then permissible under the then current incomes policy.
By the time the Burnham Committee met on 15th December, the parameters of the new incomes policy to operate from the beginning of this year had become known, and the management panel accordingly raised its open offer to the maximum of the 2½ to 4½ per cent. regarded in the new White Paper as the normal level for pay settlements in 1970

and thereafter. By 5th January, the Government had been able to take account of the first reactions to the new White Paper and of the consideration which they had by then been able to give in the light of it to a number of claims which were pending in the public sector. They started, in short, to apply the White Paper strategy. Moreover, the local authorities, who must agree to any offer made, had been able to take stock of the new situation created by the White Paper and of other claims which were likely to be made under it.
This situation posed the management panel with a difficult choice, but it was anxious to do what it could to meet the claim of the teachers. In the hope of reaching agreement "without prejudice", to use the jargon, the panel made an offer which was somewhat above the 2½ per cent. to 4½ per cent. range—at 5·1 per cent.
In considering the distribution of that offer, the panel felt bound to have regard to the great publicity from the teachers' side to the effect that it was the lower paid teachers who suffered worst under the existing agreement. The publicity had fastened on the figure of £13 a week, which was the figure of take-home, not gross, pay. Nevertheless, it was the weekly rate received by a fairly small number of teachers during probably the first six months of their service, but I do not think that this in any way justifies the fact. This is a very bad starting figure.
The Management Panel's offer was, therefore, tapered to give £100 to every teacher receiving up to £1,000 a year on 1st April and £80 to those receiving above £1,285. While, I think, we could all understand that the teachers might not be satisfied with the quantum of that offer, I think that the panel was surprised that they were opposed to the tapering. I think that most people were surprised at this in view of the large number of public statements which had been made which continually emphasised the plight of the lower-paid teacher. I believe that the Management Panel would have been prepared, and probably is still prepared, to negotiate on this point.
At the meeting on 5th January, the Teachers' Panel was not able to accept the higher offer made to it in the hope of reaching agreement. The chairman


then ruled, as he was entitled to do under the procedure in operation for the Burnham Committee, that the scope for discussion had been exhausted and he would now proceed to the further steps required under what are quaintly called the "arrangements" and invite my right hon. Friend the First Secretary to assemble an arbitral body. The teachers, however, said that they would not play their part under these arrangements and would refuse to nominate names from which my right hon. Friend the First Secretary could select one of the three members for the body envisaged under the arrangements.
I want to say a word about arbitration, which has been raised by both hon. Members who have spoken. The Burnham Committee has a quite elaborate set of arrangements, which it has operated since 1965, under which disagreements may be resolved by arbitration. The arrangements have been invoked on a number of occasions and although the National Union of Teachers has, in the fairly recent past, expressed dissatisfaction with them to my right hon. Friend, none of the Teachers' Panels has ever represented collectively to him that the arrangements operated against their interests. Nevertheless, it is surely one of the marks of a satisfactory negotiating procedure that there are arrangements to prevent deadlock and recourse to a trial of industrial strength.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wants to make it clear that he in no way rules out discussion of revision of arrangements for arbitration, or, indeed, revision of the whole Burnham machinery, which might even involve legislation. Hon. Members will, however, understand that it is extremely difficult to do this in the middle of negotiations and, perhaps more important, at the request of one party. The Government's view, therefore, is that the teachers have probably been ill advised to frustrate the existing arrangements by refusing to nominate, because it is only through agreement in the Burnham Committee or arbitration that they can get any increase. I am speaking not of greater increases, but of increases.
When, therefore, it became known that the Teachers' Panel was resolved not to co-operate, senior officials of the concili-

ation service of the Department of Employment and Productivity in the first place and then, last Friday, my right hon. Friends the First Secretary and the Secretary of State for Education and Science asked the teachers to come to discuss with them the impasse at which the teachers had arrived in the present negotiations.
At those two meetings, the teachers have been offered every possible assurance and undertaking, within reason, in an effort to persuade them to play their part and let the issue go to arbitration. Those assurances have been well published. I have details with me but, in view of the time, I do not think that I need spell them out.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Would my hon. Friend mind spelling out the assurance concerning the relationship of arbitration to the prices and incomes policy? One of the complaints was that it was not free arbitration and that the arbitrators would have to take into account the prices and incomes policy.

Miss Lestor: I am not clear what my hon. Friend is referring to in the assurances that were given.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Perhaps my hon. Friend might write to me about it. I have never been clear what assurance was given about the extent to which the arbitrators would have to take into account prices and incomes policy before reaching an arbitration award.

Miss Lestor: I will read that particular assurance, and if it is not clear to my hon. Friend then perhaps we can correspond about it.
The first one was, assurance that the arbitral body would be fully independent, and free to take into account all the arguments put by both sides. The second was, that incomes policy, which the arbitrators were enjoined to take into account, was a set of principles which recognise the special position of the public services, and referred in particular to teachers.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: Thank you.

Miss Lestor: I think that these assurances—I should like to think so, anyway —have carried some weight with the Teachers' Panel. Certainly, to judge from the Press, it seems no longer inclined to


say that arbitration is stacked in advance against the teachers.
It has, however, insisted that deliberations no arbitration must be formally exempt from the requirements of the incomes policy. So the position is that the Teachers' Panel is insisting that its claim must be settled, whether within the Burnham Committee or through arbitration arrangements, outside the limits of the incomes policy. To judge, again, from its public announcements, it is insisting, also that its claim must be settled at a figure of £135. That, as I have already said, is hardly negotiation.
I am not going to get into a debate on the incomes policy, but I must just say that the new incomes policy, which operates from the beginning of this year, is a far more flexible instrument than its predecessor. More important, as I have already said in referring to the assurance, it specifically recognises the special position of some of the public services where there is no satisfactory analogy in the private sector. It makes clear that the generalised comparisons of pay movements in other fields may have to be accepted for groups of workers like teachers and others, and it allows any other relevant considerations to be taken into account in determining pay, such as, for example, any increase in the cost of living.
What the Management Panel has done is to look at all the relevant considerations, and reach a judgment in the light of them on the right figures for this interim increase pay offer to the teachers. Its conclusion was that the 4½per cent., the top of the percentage range, was the right answer. To achive agreement, which it very much hoped to do, it was prepared to go to the figure of 5·1 per cent., which corresponds to an overall flat increase rate of £85. I know I speak for the Government and I believe also for the local authorities, for there is, after all, a joint responsibility here. The local authorities, having regard to their other commitments, reached the conclusion that this was a fair offer.
I still hope that the Teachers' Panel will either accept it or, at the very least, allow the issue to go to arbitration. I think the teachers should consider very seriously whether it is sensible that they should base their case on exemption from the new incomes policy with all the flexibility which it has.

Mr. R. C. Mitchell: The total claimed, £135, would be roughly 8 per cent. I cannot understand why the Government are insisting that the 5·1 per cent. should be the maximum, when in all the other agreements and arguments they go well beyond 8 per cent.

Miss Lestor: I cannot answer on that point for my right hon. Friend, but I will take it up with him and will communicate his views on it to my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test. I think the point is on this whole question: is it reasonable for any group in the public service—in this instance, a major group—pressing a claim, to expect to be formally and publicly exempted from the terms of a policy which has just been agreed?
Some of the present difficulties have arisen out of the mid-term claim for an increase during the currency of the two-year agreement. It must be said that, if the claim were granted in full, the teachers as a whole would have received increases of about 15 per cent. between the end of March, 1969, and 1st April, 1970, and these dates are chosen carefully to include the two increases. Under the management's open offer, the increase would have been well over 11 per cent., which would not be bad going for an interim increase.
More important, the claim in full would pre-empt some of the resources which might otherwise have been available for the settlement against 1st April, 1971, and I believe that it is this settlement which will be really important for the teachers and not the interim period. I think that it is the long-term aim and settlement which is really important. I do not feel, as hon. Members have themselves hinted, that the teachers have been well advised to exert their full pressure for the interim settlement. Their best hope must surely lie in a substantial increase after a thorough-going review of the whole structure of their pay in the next year or two.
The Management Panel has several times offered to mount such a review either within the Burnham Committee or outside it, and it must be a matter of regret that the teachers have so far found themselves unwilling to play a part in it. Such a review is in the interests of the education service itself as well as in the interests of the teachers. I hope


that the teachers will still agree to a full study within the Burnham Committee but, whether they do or not, it is for consideration whether some fresh look from outside at the structure of teachers' pay would not be desirable. I know that this is the view of some hon. Members and has been raised in the House from time to time.
Of course, an internal review in the Burnham Committee and some external look are not mutually exclusive, and no external review could be implemented except through the machinery of the Burnham Committee. My right hon. Friend has at present an open mind on this matter, but a review of any sort is bound to take a good deal of time in negotiation and research and decisions will have to be reached in the fairly near future. It is in this context that the next Burnham Committee meeting on 6th February will have the question of a review on the agenda. The meeting may be an important one, although I do not want to mislead the House into thinking that any new management offer on the interim pay claim is likely to be made.
We all know that my right hon. Friend, and, indeed, all of us, very much regret the situation over teachers' pay. The Secretary of State has said that he would like to pay the teachers more and that is the view of everyone in this House. Also, we have to bear in mind, as my right hon. Friend has, that more than half the cost of teachers' salaries comes from the Exchequer. He, through his representatives on the Burnham Committee panel, and the local authorities through theirs, have amply demonstrated their good will, but they cannot meet the teachers fully over a claim of the size of the one put forward.
The Management Panel has reached its conclusions about a fair offer and has made it, and I think that the next move rests with the other side. Negotiations surely must involve movement by both parties towards them and there are reasonable arbitration arrangements to resolve deadlock. This is surely more satisfactory than the present situation. I hope that, even at this stage, we can get to arbitration and reach a reasonable agreement.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. Mr. Speaker has ap-

pealed for brief speeches as we have a long way to go and a large number of debates have yet to take place.

RATE SUPPORT GRANT

4.50 a.m.

Mr. Julian Ridsdale: Even at this early hour of the morning I welcome the opportunity of speaking about the interests of the ratepayer, particularly after the interests of the teachers and others have been advocated. I welcome this opportunity to speak on the rate support grant to local revenue, totalling some £1,536,837,000 for 1969–70, and some £693 million for the Vote on Account for 1970–71 and the £70,920,000 Supplementary Estimate needed. When I first heard that the Supplementary Estimate for 1969–70 was £70,920,000 I thought and hoped that at least some part of that sum would go towards helping close the gap in primary school building.
It might in some way have helped towards building some necessary highways or on some desirable expenditure on the elderly, particularly those in need. What a shock it was to find that all of this sum, and more, is pre-empted because of the salary increases or loan interest charges. What have been the total sums involved? I estimate that for 1969–70 the principal increases include an additional £49·7 million for teachers' salaries, not including the probable £25 million to £30 million cost of the present settlement; £16·1 million for the pay award to manual workers; £19·9 million for other pay awards; £321 million for higher interest charges and £4·7 million for increased national insurance contributions.
This is a total of £122·4 million, or, if we include the probable settlement on the new teachers' claim, £150 million. Let us be clear that this Supplementary Estimate of 1970 in itself does not even cover the increased costs that wage inflation has imposed on local government revenue. It has been millions for nothing so far as improving amenities in local government is concerned.
On 16th January, 1968, following devaluation, the Prime Minister told us that the rate support grant would not be increased to take account of increased costs. He said that the Government would expect local authorities to absorb increases


in costs which they could not absorb by making savings elsewhere. This meant that, although local authority expenditure for grant purposes over the last 10 years had been allowed to increase at an average rate of 6 per cent. in real terms, for 1969–70 the rate of increase was to be halved, and for 1970–71 it will be equivalent to a cut of one-sixth.
What a dilemma this has been for local authorities. Not only are they having to face severe cuts in the rates when there had usually been increases, but they have to face additional wage increases, not fully covered by the Supplementary Estimates. They have therefore, by a deliberate act of Government policy, been faced either with cutting the standard services or increasing the rates. In reality, it has meant that they have been faced with both.
In my constituency I know how this has slowed down the primary school building programme in North-East Essex, and how, in Brightlingsea, where there is severe overcrowding, the new junior school planned there has had to be delayed. The 1968–69 capital programme for school building in North-East Essex totalled just over £2 milion and the Ministry eventually slashed that to under £300,000—a cut of 77 per cent.
This is what the cutting down of the rate support grant and cuts in spending has meant. It has hit education particularly hard, especially the school building programme. Highways have also been affected. For example, in my constituency the bypass so badly needed at Dovercourt has had to be postponed. Yet this is a vital road to the port of Harwich. To their credit the local authorities, as far as they have been able, have tried to prevent some severe cuts in welfare services which fall on the elderly. In the end financial realities have to be faced. Further cuts are very difficult to make and a severe rate rise seems inevitable.
May I ask the Minister two questions, one in detail about the domestic element of the rate support grant and the second in general about the financing of local government expenditure. What is to be Government policy towards the domestic element of the rate support grant, in view of the severe increases in rates threatened and the burden that this will place on the property owner, particularly the small bungalow or house owner and lower wage

earner of which there are so many in North-East Essex.
Is it the Government's intention to revise the figure of £100 million, which was the sum fixed some time ago, to help such people, particularly the retired. When fixed, it surely did not envisage the kind of burdens the Government have placed on the country. Did the domestic element take into account devaluation or its results? Surely the Minister realises that something must be done to help the domestic ratepayer, faced as he is with increases in the cost of living on all sides. Does he realise how worried many elderly people are by the forms which are at present being circulated asking what central heating units have been put into houses since the last valuation? Why could not the Government have waited at least until they had a clearer idea about the reform of the financing of local government.
This is a section of the community that is without any trade union spokesman to fight its battles. It is because I know of the severe increases in rates they may have to face that I ask the Government to look again to see whether it is possible to increase this domestic element of the rate support grant. I should like to see a fair policy for rates as well as a fair policy for rents.
Why have the Government been so slow in formulating plans for the financing of local government? Need I remind the Minister that the Labour manifesto in the 1964 election, somewhat ironically entitled "The New Britain"—we certainly have a new Britain, but not that we were led to expect in 1964— made a categorical pledge, on page 14, to transfer the larger part of the cost of teachers' salaries from the rates to the Exchequer. Alas, the new grants we have been discussing take no account of further salary awards that may be made to teachers, which could cost local authorities between £25 and £30 million.
What are the Government's intentions towards the reform of local government finance? We have had the Maud Committee's report but nothing yet about reform of local government finance, about which I have spoken so many times in the House in the past, in order to avoid the very problems which at present face the ratepayers, particularly the small


property owner, the retired and the lower-wage earners.
When will the Government publish their proposals for the reform of local government finance? Let me make a plea once again for reality. The fact is that any proposals the Government might make for local government finance will take a considerable time to implement. This is why I press the Government to look again at the domestic needs element in the rate support grant. Surely this is the only way at present to help the domestic ratepayer now that the Government have failed to honour their pledge to transfer the larger part of teachers' salaries from the rates to the Exchequer, for it is the increase in educational costs which present the main burden to ratepayers.
Why should the ratepayer be shouldered with this enormous burden which is equivalent to the same kind of burden which the Exchequer has to face in defence at present? I am convinced that, until other means are found to finance local government, domestic ratepayers should at least be protected from the present education burdens which are placed on their shoulders. Surely the only way that this can be done, since the Government have been so slow to formulate any ideas about the reform of the finances of local government, is to increase the domestic element of the rate support grant.
Finally, in case the Minister accuses me of advocating economy in general but expenditure in particular, I should like to say that last week I endeavoured to catch Mr. Speaker's eye, but without avail, in the debate on public expenditure. I fully realise that the only way to solve so many of these problems is to see that we expand our gross national product and that we make more wealth. This can be done only with the utmost of restraint. We must see to it that savings are taken up for investment in industry. This is the long-term solution to our problems. Alas, it is not yet being achieved. But in order to carry out such a policy, economies must not fall on those least able to bear them.
That is why I wish to see a fair rates policy and, above all, the reform of local government finance. It is only in the latter that an adequate structure

can be made which will protect the ratepayer and, in the long term, be in the interests of the country as a whole.

5.0 a.m.

The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Denis Howell): Even at this late hour, I hope that I shall be forgiven if I go over some of the points raised by the hon. Member for Harwich (Mr. Rids-dale) with a view to convincing him that he is wide of the mark in respect of his general case.
The first point that he discussed was in respect of the supplementary rate grant, which was debated fully in the House on 15th December. I explained then that that grant was in respect of the increase in salaries which had occurred during the year over and above the negotiated settlement which the Government always have with local authorities. It was the subject of complete agreement with the local authority associations, and, therefore, had little to do with the rate of growth of local government services. Instead, it had to do with the increased salaries paid in respect of the rate of growth which had been the subject of the original main order.
I will return to the growth of local government services in a moment, because it is important. It is also important not to confuse the main grant order, which deals year by year with the rate of growth, with the supplementary order, which is not concerned with the main question but with the increased rates of pay necessary to implement the main Order.
Teachers' salaries are now becoming rather "old hat", although it was pertinent for the hon. Gentleman to remind us that the Government said originally in 1966 that they might transfer teachers' salaries to the Exchequer. This was before the implementation of the special arrangements for assisting the domestic ratepayer which were introduced in 1967–68, which have increased by 5d. a year since, and will reach next year an amount equivalent to is. 8d. in the £ of special rate to every domestic ratepayer in the country.
The hon. Gentleman seemed to argue like Oliver Twist. He wanted an increase in the help given to domestic ratepayers, and the burden of the teachers' salaries


transferred as well. He asked not for more, but for more and more. His right hon. and hon. Friends always advocate more autonomy for local government. Such a wholesale transfer from the ratepayer to the taxpayer, as well as the domestic rate element, is hardly a proper arrangement if local government is to be kept in a healthy form.

Mr. Ridsdale: When the hon. Gentleman has an opportunity to see my speech in print, he will see that I was not advocating that kind of expenditure. I was asking the Government to honour some of their election pledges.

Mr. Howell: Certainly, and I am saying that it is exactly what they have done. By the introduction of special help to the domestic ratepayer where it is needed most, not only have they honoured an election pledge, they have had an outstanding success. I was sorry that the hon. Gentleman said nothing about the success of the Government in keeping down rates without restricting local government services unduly.
In so far as the hon. Gentleman said, first, that the domestic rate element ought to be increased even above that which it will be next year, namely, 1s. 8d. in the pound, and, secondly, that teachers' salaries ought to be transferred, I was saying that he was asking for more and more and more, a position which any hon. Member given responsibility for public expenditure could not take up.
I come now to what the Government have achieved. This is a success story. Even at this time in the morning, I am delighted to take the opportunity to spell it out, because not enough is known about the matter. The bald fact is that since 1966–67 the average amount paid by the domestic ratepayer in this country has increased in each year by just over 7 per cent. compared with 26 per cent. per year in the last three years of the previous course Administration. That was the position before the domestic rate support grant was introduced. Comparing those figures we see the magnitude of the Government's achievement in this respect.
Rates had been going up steadily by an average of about 10d. per year. The Government's achievement in the last three years has been to reduce that to exactly half. So there has been only an

increase of 5d. because of the domestic rate element.
I should like to explain the actual figures and, at the same time, give the figures for the growth of local government services as a whole. In that way the hon. Gentleman will see that the Government's achievements are twofold. First, to peg what the domestic ratepayer has been asked to pay in a way which all of us wish that we could have achieved with the prices of many other commodities, and, secondly, to show the growth of local government services which has occurred, notwithstanding our achievement for the domestic ratepayer.
In 1967–68, the first year that the new domestic help of 5d. came in, there was no increase in the average rate poundage for the country as a whole for the domestic ratepayer, but there was a 6 per cent. growth in local government services. In 1968–69, the second year, when the help to the domestic ratepayer went up to 10d., there was an average increase of 1d. in the rate poundage and a 3 per cent. growth in local government services.
In the third year, which is just coming to an end, when the help to the domestic ratepayer went up to 1 s. 3d. in the pound, the average increase for the domestic ratepayer has been 5d. and the growth in local government services as a whole has been 4·2 per cent.
Next year, which starts on 1st April, when the help to every domestic ratepayer will be 1s. 8d., although we do not yet know what the average increase will be, the growth in local government services is estimated to be 5 per cent. That 1s. 8d. to the domestic ratepayer will cost the country £100 million. The Government feel that this will be money well spent. In the terms which the hon. Gentleman put his strictures on the Government, this is £100 million in honour of our election promise to keep the domestic rate burden down.
I am sorry that this fact does not figure in the propaganda speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite. We do not begrudge this money. In fact, we designed that it would be there during a period of prices and incomes control for the express purpose of maintaining stability for the average ratepayer, whilst at the same time


providing some reasonable degree of growth in local authority services.
The hon. Gentleman said a great deal about things that were not going to happen in his constituency and elsewhere. The fact is that the 5 per cent. growth in local government services which we estimate for the coming financial year compares with a 3 per cent. growth rate for the economy as a whole, as forecast by the White Paper, so that even on this count the Government have done reasonably well by local government.
I think that the hon. Gentleman was confused about these matters. I have been looking at the situation in his constituency of Harwich, and I find that ratepayers there get more help than the average for the country because the hon. Gentleman's constituency has below the average amount of industry. Over England and Wales as a whole, 44 per cent. of the rate borne expenditure is provided by the ordinary domestic ratepayer. At Harwich, the figure is 63 per cent. and at Frinton and Walton it is 75 per cent. Thus, as the Government give special help to the domestic ratepayer, it must follow that those areas which have an above average amount of domestic ratepayers compared with industrial ratepayers get more help from the Government than is provided in my constituency in Birmingham and elsewhere.

Mr. Ridsdale: In the last five or six years the population of this area has risen by more than 20,000, and the amount of money obtained from the Government in no way helps to overcome the difficulties which face those people in the form of providing increased services.

Mr. Howell: I do not want to minimise the difficulties of expanding towns. This happens in many parts of the country, but when the expansion is almost exclusively in housebuilding, as distinct from factory building, that local authority is comparatively better off under our arrangements for helping the domestic ratepayer than are local authorities in other parts of the country.
The hon. Gentleman referred to the school building programme, and to the new form which has been sent to householders in connection with central heating. I think that the hon. Gentleman was wrong in his analysis of school

building. There has been no cut in this programme, and even though this debate is not about the school building programme I should like to make the position clear. Having spent five years in this Department, the facts are clearly in my mind. The programme this year will be £125 million, which is twice what it was in 1965–66 when the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues left office. That is no mean achievement when seen against the background of five difficult years for the economy as a whole.
It may be that this £125 million programme is inadequate, and that the hon. Gentleman's constituency has not received all that it wanted, but that does not represent a cut in school building. One of the difficult tasks which the Secretary of State for Education and Science has to perform is to decide where that £125 million should be spent. Nobody knows better than my right hon. Friend does that he would like to have more than that sum to spend. The question is how much the economy can stand, and the Government's judgment is that £125 million is right. I note what the hon. Gentleman says about disappointment on this score, even though the overall figure is twice what it was five years ago. No doubt, the Department of Education and Science will take his local requirements into account.
Now, the question of the circular going to all households in the country under the new rating procedure. I cannot understand why it should surprise anyone that there is a question about central heating. A general review of rateable values has to go on. Rightly or wrongly—I have some sympathy with the view that it is illogical, but no one has been able to devise a better system —the rateable value of a house is determined by the rent at which it can be let. Obviously, therefore, improvements in a house affect the rateable value. If central heating is put in, the rental value, and thus the rateable value, of the house must be increased.

Mr. Ridsdale: Shame.

Mr. Howell: The hon. Gentleman says, "Shame", but that is the valuation system with which his party and mine have had to grapple over the years. So long as it remains the law—it was a Tory Government who introduced it, I believe—that will be the basis of our


rating system. I happen to regard it as an illogical system. I have thought about it long and hard, trying to devise an alternative. To his credit, the hon. Gentleman has tried to do the same, producing on one occasion the idea of a local sites tax. When I sat on his side of the House, I tried to develop the idea of a local income tax. Unfortunately, all these other ideas, when subjected to detailed analysis, reveal themselves as defective or likely to put up the cost of living. Having looked at the question from this side of the fence, I am sure that they would be subject to even more hostility than the present system.

Mr. G. B. H. Currie: Does rot the hon. Gentleman agree that those who earn money should help to pay the, rates? Children often bring in £20 or £30 a week, but they do not pay a halfpenny of local rates. That seems quite wrong.

Mr. Howell: That was exactly the point of the speech which I made from the Opposition side of the House six or seven years ago. I have a good deal of sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman says, but he will, I am sure, recognise that the one thing which gives great offence to either ratepayer or taxpayer is taxation determined by income, and the whole movement of opinion seems to be the other way at the moment. Regrettable as that may seem to the hon. Gentleman and myself and others who favour direct taxation, that is the climate of opinion, apparently, and no Government—

Mr. Currie: We should form our own party, I suggest.

Mr. Howell: I did my part some years ago. I have regretfully put it down as one of the great lost causes of history.
Now, the question of the future of local government finance after Redcliffe-Maud. The Government are soon to publish in a White Paper their thinking on the Redcliffe-Maud proposals as a whole. I am glad to tell the House that a fundamental review of local government finance and the principles behind it has now been started in my Ministry. All the local authority associations and others have to be consulted and this is bound to take time. Our conclusions about the future financing of local government—as distinct from the shape of local government, on which the White Paper will concentrate—

will be published as White Paper No. 2 on local government reform, or some other means will be found of introducing the Government's thinking and collecting the opinion of local authority associations.
This is not being neglected. It is detailed and involved and fundamental but it must follow the thinking on the future shape of local government and should not precede that thinking. The Royal Commission itself recognised these facts.

MOTORWAY CONSTRUCTION

5.21 a.m.

Mr. Angus Maude: I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss some aspects of the Ministry of Transport's motorway policy. I was going to say how grateful I was to the Parliamentary Secretary for being here at this rather discouraging hour, but he seems to have disappeared again—

The Minister of State, Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. Denis Howell): I will undertake to take a note of what the hon. Gentleman says—

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Sydney Irving): Order. I wonder whether the House can help me. The next debate was to have been a debate on the Middle East. Can we assume that that will not now take place?

Mr. Currie: No, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I regret to say that I have some things to say about the Middle East.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman may not catch my eye. An order has been determined by ballot and if this was upset and the hon. Gentleman was allowed to catch my eye later, that would be unfair to other hon. Members.

Mr. Maude: I am grateful to the Minister of State, Ministry of Housing, for undertaking to stand in for the Parliamentary Secretary until he comes back.
If the hon. Gentleman cannot answer my questions now, I should be grateful if he would write to me. I hope that my suggestions will be accepted as a friendly attempt to improve relations between the Ministry and the public. We know the Ministry's policy, from the Green Paper, "Roads for the Future".
I should like some elucidation about some of the ways in which this has been


working out and about the order in which the Minister proceeds when making decisions, particularly about new strategy roads. We know that the Ministry does many calculations, particularly about traffic flows and costs, as well as a certain amount of cost-benefit analysis. What is not clear is at what stage this figuring is done and at what stage it is best that the public should be informed.
I am glad to see that the Parliamentary Secretary has returned. I recognise that this has been a difficult order to sort out. I was saying that I should be quite happy if the hon. Gentleman answered in writing any of my questions which he could not answer tonight. I hope that he will accept my suggestions in a friendly spirit, designed to help his Ministry rather than to criticise it.
In respect of the new motorways and strategy roads planned under the Green Paper "Roads for the Future", the Ministry is getting fresh knowledge and experience about the future which the public would like to have. For example, the Ministry calculates in advance what diversion of traffic will occur from older trunk roads when a new motorway or high-grade road is built.
This in itself creates new traffic. For example, the M1 is becoming overloaded, and this is partly responsible for the need for the M40. The same is shown by the M6. When it is possible to get from the Midlands to the Lake District and back in a day, it is obvious that people who would not otherwise have made the journey will do so, particularly on a summer's day. There is nothing wrong with that and it is nice for them, but new traffic is thereby created.
We should be given some of the information which the Ministry is collecting and it should be taken into account in the cost-benefit analysis of new roads. The generation of completely new traffic may, from the economic point of view, be good, but traffic is not a commodity of which we in this country are short; and there are dangers in the generation of a great deal of new traffic, particularly when, as is mentioned in the Green Paper, some of it is larger and faster goods-carrying traffic.
These goods vehicles do not stay for the whole of their journeys on motor-

ways. They must get on to them from their original sources and get off them to their ultimate destinations. Container traffic must be "broken down" at certain points. This means that over some older routes new large goods vehicles are being brought on to these roads by motorways when they would not otherwise have been brought on to them. I sometimes feel that the environment in this country, like the economy, is at the mercy of the design and production decisions of the motor industry, and that cannot always be felt to be in the best interests of the country.
The Green Paper sets out the kind of benefits it is possible to quantify when a new motorway or strategy road is planned and the cost-benefit analysis is being made. The benefits are economic and include the prevention of accidents, an easing of traffic on existing roads and so on. But the costs, apart from the unknown quantity of new traffic being generated, should also include an estimate of the disruption, and even visual damage, inflicted on the environment by the creation of a new road.
When we have in South Warwickshire, in my constituency, already three trunk roads going northwards rather like three prongs of a trident, the idea of putting a completely new road in between and inflicting on a particularly good and beautiful piece of agricultural land yet another road is something which causes very considerable disruption to the landscape as well as to farmers and other residents on the route. In addition to the costs of acquisition, the compensation to farmers and so forth, there should be—end I should like to know to what extent this is true—some calculation of the cost of the actual damage or disruption caused to the environment and people in it.
I know it is often said that this is very difficult, if not impossible, to quantify, but I have heard reports that the Roskill Commission is actually doing this in some of its inquiries about the third London Airport and evolving new techniques in the case of the London motorway plan.
I said that I wanted to say a word about the so-called Oxford-Birmingham motorway, the extension of the M.40 which the Minister referred in a Written Answer to me before Christmas


not as a motorway but as a new high-grade road. I notice that my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) is here and I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Henley (Mr. Hay), who, unfortunately, could not be here, is also interested in this. I cannot, of course, speak for Oxfordshire, but there are one or two points I wish to make about the Warwickshire section. Without taking any line about the desirability of this motorway, because I think that would be quite premature, I want to make a few suggestions to the Minister based on experience of what has been happening to see if he cannot get a better relationship between his Ministry and people who will be ultimately affected.
There is a certain amount of unhappiness about this. The Green Paper says, quite rightly, that the public and all bodies remotely concerned should be taken into full consultation and participation at the planning stage of new roads. It seems that the first thing which is desirable to satisfy people that justice is not only being done but is being seen to be done is that before we get anywhere near the definition of a route for a new road we should at least be told on what grounds it has been decided to build a new road rather than to upgrade an existing A road.
I know that very often a new road is very much easier and cheaper than upgrading existing trunk or strategy roads, but from Oxford, for example, to Southampton the strategy road in the Green Paper is not in fact a new road but the old A.34 which is being upgraded. So it is clear that the Ministry envisages that in some cases it is adequate to upgrade an existing road rather than to build a new road. I think most people would like to know what kind of considerations go into this and why, in South Warwickshire, when we have three existing trunk roads going roughly north and south, it is necessarily better—taking everything, including the effect on the landscape, into account—to build yet a fourth quite new road with all the dislocation that causes rather than to upgrade one of the existing roads. There is considerable fear in some places that this will not necessarily help some of the places which are most seriously affected by traffic at present and that the result may be actually to postpone the building

of bypasses round towns and villages which have been promised them within the next few years.
People would like to know this sort of thing at an early stage. What seems to happen at present is that the Ministerrightly—remains fairly uncommitted, though he says at present that he is awaiting a feasibility study about this new high grade road. At the same time, before anybody has been told why a new high grade road is needed a number of people have been poking about on the road itself and arousing a certain amount of concern among those whose property is being affected.

Mr. Neil Marten: This is so in my hon. Friend's constituency, I take it?

Mr. Maude: Yes. I leave it to my hon. Friend to speak entirely for his constituency.
The Oxfordshire County Council has already published its feasibility study on landscape grounds, with a recommendation to the Minister to take one particular route. In Warwickshire, this has not happened. The Warwickshire County Council has not published a similar study. So my constituents are left in a considerably worse informed state than the constituents of my hon. Friend. I, as the Member of Parliament, find it impossible to do more than collect a few scattered rumours as to where reconnoitring parties have been seen and what they have said to those affected. The Stratford-on-Avon Rural District Council, which is a delegated planning authority, and through the whole of whose territory the likely line of this route will run, has never been approached or consulted, either by the Midlands road construction unit or by the county council.
From the most elementary point of view of public relations it would be to the long-term advantage of the Ministry and all the other people affected if there were at least a minimum of consultation and information at this sort of stage, because it is not simply as if people were under the impression that the whole thing was in the air. Many of them have been given the impression that the general line of a route has been decided and cut and dried by the experts and that it only awaits the Minister's approval.
There is something to be said for a little earlier release of information, a little


earlier consultation, because what tends to happen now is that, although in general most motorists are in favour of having new and better roads, nobody wants them to go through his own land or his own back garden and, instead of everybody starting from the assumption that it would be a good idea to have a new road of this kind, rumours and fears multiply and pressure groups start in certain areas whose main aim is to try to push the road into somebody else's area. So hostility builds up in some areas, while others take life a little easier, though they may well find that thing ends up on their land when the decision is finally made.
Lastly—and I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will realise that this is intended not as a criticism, but merely as a suggestion—it has always seemed to me that when, finally, the Minister announces his line of route, at which stage, I think, a statutory body can object under Section 11 of the Act, what tends to happen is that one route only is announced and the costs of that one route are given by the Minister if an inquiry arises. But nobody is ever given the chance to compare the costs and benefits of alternative routes and to decide whether the line which the Minister has chosen is right. It is extremely expensive for objectors to have to commission their own surveys and work out their own costs for use at a public inquiry.
Therefore, if the Minister is sincere, as I am sure he is, in saying, as the Green Paper suggests, that the public and all bodies concerned should be taken into partnership and consultation early on and that only on this basis can the policy work, which I am sure is right, surely there should be more consultation and information at the sort of stage which we have reached with the possible Oxford-Birmingham motorway. Surely it is wrong that a very large rural district council through whose land this road may go should have heard from no one about it and presumably will not hear anything about it until the Minister has decided a line.
If we could have more information, not only about the kind of benefits which motorways bring, but about the costs, apart from the construction costs, which are taken into account by the Minister,

together with earlier and fuller consultation, it would be better all round.

Mr. Marten: My hon. Friend wonders whether this information could be made available. He does not say to whom it should be made available. Perhaps he would deal with that point.

Mr. Maude: Some of it, at any rate in general terms, could be made available to everybody through the Press. I am not suggesting that the Minister, before even the technical decisions are made, should go nap on a particular line. For example, why a new road is needed at a particular place rather than up-grading an existing one is surely a fundamental stage in the argument which everybody would like to know about before the costs of individual routes begin to be discussed. Bodies which are closely concerned with these matters, such as rural district councils and the county branches of the National Farmers' Union —and in my constituency the N.F.U. is simply acting as a clearing house for rumours and odd bits of information which it picks up from its members would like a little more consultation and information at an earlier stage.

Mr. Marten: My point is, where does one draw the line? The county and rural district councils must be fully informed. If we start going to outside organisations, where do we draw the line? Should not we get back on the constitutional network, as it were, because everyone locally is entitled to attend rural district council meetings and officially to attend county council meetings. Perhaps that is the sort of place where these matters should be sorted out. Once we start diffusing into other outside organisations and say that they have a right at this stage or that to have every bit of information, we would go on for ever.

Mr. Maude: The difficulty in this sort of case, certainly in Warwickshire, is that the rural district council is not given any information by the county council. I doubt whether the county council has all the information. The surveys and so on have been done by the Midland road construction unit, which is the responsibility of the Ministry. The result is that nobody tells the unfortunate R.D.C. anything.

Mr. Marten: This may be so. However, I have been to see the Oxfordshire


County Council and it struck me that it was very well informed, in so far as there was anything about which to be informed al this stage. It has probably had discussion with the road construction unit and the Ministry about this and has fed many of its ideas and plans to the Ministry.
What has stirred up this problem in my constituency, and it may be a good thing, is that representatives of the Eastern road construction unit went on the land of some of my constituents and went to farmers in the evenings and discussed with them where the road might go through their property. Naturally, my constituents became very anxious about this and took it up with me. In turn, I took it up with the Ministry and I asked a Question about it just before Christmas.
I suspect that the gentlemen from the Eastern road construction unit overstepped the mark and had no authority to say, if ever it was said, that the road would go over their land. As I understand it, certainly after the answer to my Question, a project feasibility study is at present being carried out. At that stage, the Government have certainly not made up their minds and these gentlemen were totally wrong and misled my constituents.

Mr. Maude: My constituents were told that, give or take a few hundred yards, the route was fixed.

Mr. Marten: I understand that words to that effect were said to my constituents. I hurried to the county council and found that that was not so. The route has not been fixed. The Ministry confirmed that by saying that a project feasibility study was being carried out.
What we want in my constituency is a by-pass at Banbury, Adderbury and Deddington, which presumably would also run north into my hon. Friend's constituency. While I am naturally deeply concerned about what would happen to it after that, I will not waste the time of the House by talking about it now. Nothing less will suit us than a good standard by-pass linking up with the M40, and it therefore makes sense to have this motorway, or high grade road.
My hon. Friend referred to environment. All we are discussing in Oxford-

shire is the line the road will take near the beautiful valley of the Cherwell. That difficulty can be overcome with a route which would be acceptable, understandably not to the owners of the land affected, but, generally, a favourable route would not spoil this beautiful part of Oxfordshire. It seems to be sense to have a motorway or high-standard road. The issue we have to decide in Oxfordshire is not whether there should be a road. No one has spoken or written to me about that. People's anxiety is that if there is a road, it should go where it causes least inconvenience and the least undesirable effects. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind.

5.50 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Bob Brown): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Mr. Maude) for the responsible way in which he has approached this subject. If I omit to deal with any of the points during my reply, I shall certainly write to him about them at an early date.
If I may say a word about motorway construction in general, it is fair to say that each proposal must be considered on its merits. In the development of the route strategy, decisions on the standard of construction will take into account such factors as the estimated cost, the relationship of the section to the remainder of the network, the length of road to be constructed, the total volume and proportion of long-distance journeys along the route, and the possibility that construction of a motorway might deprive us of the valuable option to phase the investment over a period of time more in keeping with the relative priority and needs of the route as a whole.
The capital cost is therefore, always a prime consideration. If the route can be satisfactorily improved by making use of lengths of existing road, the savings from such an improvement when set against the cost of constructing a motorway can be very significant.
Briefly, however, we will certainly continue to determine the standard to which a new road will be built by reference to the benefits to be obtained in relation to the cost: in other words,


we will continue to choose the development that will give the best value for money in the long term.
The hon. Member has mentioned the Oxford-Birmingham feasibility study and referred specifically to his rural district council, appearing to imply a lack of consultation. The county council is the highway authority, and the highway authority is the body which has to be consulted in the first place.

Mr. Maude: The hon. Gentleman will realise that what it does with its villages is a matter of considerable importance to a local authority which has delegated planning powers. This might affect that position very much.

Mr. Brown: If there is no satisfactory relationship between a county council—the highway authority—and its rural district councils, I find it extremely strange.

Mr. Marten: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that in Oxfordshire it works very well.

Mr. Brown: There we are. These are two separate counties.
The hon. Gentleman said that the Midland R.C.U. is a Ministry organisation and responsible simply to the Ministry. That is not the case. The basic concept of road construction units is that they are a team effort, with the county council and Ministry officials working together as a team. They have been very successful and have worked harmoniously. I know the Midland R.C.U. very well and have been impressed by the way in which people from the Ministry are able to work so successfully with their county council counterparts in the R.C.U.
The feasibility study for the Oxford-Birmingham route was announced in April, 1968. It was to examine the need for a new, high-grade road between Birmingham and Oxford to join the M1 and so provide a fast route to London, thereby relieving part of the M1. The new road was also to provide relief for the trunk roads A34, A41 and A423, each of which is in need of some improvement. The feasibility study is being carried out by the Midland R.C.U. which is now nearing completion of this part of its work. Part I of the report is now being considered; Part II should be available in a month or two.
The next major step is to decide whether or not the proposed road should be included in the preparation pool, with publication of the line coming at the later stage when we decide on a firm programme. The preparation pool decision, which will be publicly announced, should be taken during the first half of this year. The detailed line, if agreed, is likely to be published in the spring of 1971.
The hon. Gentleman made reference to the need for consideration of other lines, and he said that when a route is announced, only the costs of that route are given by the Minister, and that no other routes are costed. I must be careful what I say about this, in view of the decision which the Minister has yet to make on part of the M40 route, but, to speak generally. I can say that all this is intimately concerned with the question of blight.
In reply to the questions about when and where consultations should start and stop, I can think of nothing worse than a situation where every line which the Department might consider for any particular scheme is publicly discussed. If it were, not merely part only of a county, but a whole county, could be living in mortal fear of a motorway going through it and through people's homes. This would be the case even though a choice of alternative routes had not been made. There has to be some regard to confidentiality in the early stages.
We have, from time to time, to reply to hon. Members' letters complaining on behalf of constituents that the Department's people have a cavalier attitude, and have gone on to people's land, and so on. What is true, by and large, is what the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) said happened with one of his constituents; that is, a Departmental officer goes along and discusses possibilities over a cup of tea. It is not true that the Ministry's officers or R.C.U. officers go charging around the country, entering on to people's land without authority, and so forth.
There has to be some regard to confidentiality, otherwise vast areas of the country would be more or less sterilised, and people would be worried almost to death, to say the least. That is the reason why it is just not possible publicly to evaluate every possible alternative route. From my as yet short experience in the


Department I can say that even a minor length of road may involve 16, 17 or 18 possible alternative routes. Just consider the effect of discussing publicly every one of the alternatives when many of them would not really be starters anyway. There just does not seem to be any sense at all in doing so.
I can give both the hon. Members an assurance that, if there are points which I have missed and which need a reply, I will write to them. But as my right hon. Friend has yet to reach a decision on that part of the M40 which passes through the Chilterns, following the public inquiry, it would be as well for me to say nothing more now.

AGRICULTURE (SOUTH-WEST ENGLAND)

6.0 a.m.

Mr. John Pardoe: It will not have escaped the notice of the Minister of Agriculture that a considerable part of the farmers' militancy has emanated from the South-West of England. If he wanted confirmation of that, he must have got it on his recent visit to Exeter for the annual general meeting of the Devon County branch of the N.F.U. It is not sheer coincidence that the most vocal and lucid spokesman of the new militancy, Mr. Wallace Day, is a West Countryman.
Agriculture generally faces serious problems, but it is not too much to say that agriculture in the South-West, especially in Cornwall and Devon, faces a crisis. The difference between the problems faced by the farmers in the South-West and those faced in the rest of the country stems partly from the geography and partly from the structure of agriculture there. The South-West is ideally suited for the growth of grass, which is the dominant crop. As a result, dairy farming is the dominant type of farming. In Cornwall, 48 per cent. of full-time farms are dairy farms, compared with 39 per cent. for England and Wales.
The important of livestock generally can be seen from the fact that less than 3 per cent. of Cornish farms are "cropping farms" compared with 16 per cent. in England and Wales. Moreover, the size of the farms in the South-West is smaller than in the country generally. The pro-

portion of holdings of less than 50 acres in Cornwall is twice that for England and Wales.
Not only are the farms physically smaller, but farm businesses are smaller, too. All these factors mean that the general pattern of agricultural economies in Britain has hit the South-West farmers harder than most. The smaller farmer can increase the size of his business by going intensive, but this requires capital resources and usually he is less able to obtain such resources than the larger farmers.
In 1967 a document produced by the South-West Economic Planning Council, "A Region with a Future", made the somewhat facile remark that
It is not possible to say for certain, but it is a reasonable assumption, that farmers and growers in the South-West are no less able to borrow and are in the main no less willing to invest than farmers elsewhere.
That gem of wisdom does not take us very far. A little further on, it said:
If farm incomes in any part of the Region are significantly lower than the average, it is more difficult for the farmers concerned to make the investment necessary to increase their size of business or to modernise their equipment. Moreover, it would be difficult for such farmers to borrow capital for improvements.
Elsewhere, the report said:
Probably the largest single source of funds for investment is farmers' profits.
Taking these points together it is true that because of the size of farms and the structure of agriculture in the South-West, it is more difficult for farmers to find capital. It is more difficult for them to find that capital out of income because they do not have a large enough income to have a surplus for investment. They are more dependent on short-term borrowing than large farmers; on borrowing from banks and merchant credit. In the conditions of a prolonged credit squeeze, such as we have had, they are hit hardest. They are less able to rub along on cash flow in bad times, and they cannot finance their necessary investment out of cash flow because it is not large enough.
Those are the problems that differentiate the South-West farmers in this new mood of militancy. The protest is not new, but it is much more widespread. Mr. Wallace Day even threatened to stand as an Independent candidate in my constituency, in the early 1960s, against the


then Conservative Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture. He did so primarily on a farm protest and an anti-Common Market ticket. His speeches then were as critical of Government farming policy as in recent weeks. Why did this militancy not blow up before? I do not think that it is primarily for political reasons, although I can understand that a Labour Minister might suspect this. It is probably true that farmers are predominantly Conservative, and are loath to admit that Tory policies are quite as bad as their accounts would have them believe.
The row did not blow up before, too, because of the red herring of the Common Market. N.F.U. took a very negative attitude to our entry from the beginning and spent so much time fearing for the future of agriculture in the Market that it failed to see that it was losing the present. By focussing farmers' attention on Britain joining the Common Market it was leading the industry up a blind alley.
In the West Country the older generation of farmers was probably more content, and perhaps still is, with a somewhat lower standard of living, and certainly more content to live without luxuries than farmers elsewhere. Very few of the older generation of farmers in the West Country ever thought of taking an annual holiday, while the younger generation tends to think it is something it ought to have. The younger generation has higher expectations.
There is far less protest, too, from those who have inherited farms, simply because most of them are not thinking in terms, as they ought to, of the return of capital invested in the land.
Agriculture, particularly in the South-West, is in crisis. This stems from a long history of mad farming economics, not in the last four or six years, but over a much longer period. As a layman, when I have had to examine farmers' accounts in those years I have never failed to be mystified by the nonsense with which I am confronted. As a layman I have tended to turn to the farmer and shake my head and ask, "Why do you stay?" The answer is never simple and it is rarely for the money.
If one examines farm accounts, as I have been doing in recent weeks in Cornwall, one comes across some extraordinary figures, figures that no businessman would tolerate for any length of time. This is not new. It is about 15 years since my brother purchased a farm in Somerset. He borrowed nearly £20,000 to do this, and after three or four years of mixed farming he found that he was making no headway at all, although he was working on the farm from morning to night. Eventually he had to get out or "go intensive". He was able to "go intensive" into broilers, and it worked. But it cannot work for everybody, and many people have been or will be forced out.
I examined the accounts of one particular farmer who farms a 50 acre farm valued in 1969 at £20,500. That figure is written into the accounts at £10,800, but this is something that tends to happen with farm accounts. Nevertheless, that is its value and he would get £20,500 if he was to sell it.
When one looks at his accounts and averages his capital in the years from 1953 to 1968, one finds that on the whole the capital employed was about £13,000. His average profit was £770, which is a return of 6 per cent. This to my way of thinking is an extremely poor return and one I would not wish to contemplate if I was thinking of investing money in any business.
There has been a progressive decline in the situation. Here again. I emphasise strongly that this decline has not come about just in the last few years. Conservative Price Reviews were disastrous. Since the war there have been 23 Price Reviews, 10 under Labour Governments and 13 under Conservative Governments. The average under-recoupment per Labour review was £6 million; the average under-recoupment per Conservative review was £13½ million.
If one looks at the increased Price Review determinations as a percentage of increase factor cost of review commodities, one sees that in 13 Conservative reviews farmers got only 40 per cent. of their increased costs and in the last five Labour reviews they have got 80 per cent.
But this is not the whole story. It is not just a matter of how much money you can pump into the industry through


any particular Price Review. Other factors are of immense importance. However, by 1964, as a result of bad reviews under successive Conservative Governments, the agricultural industry, particularly in the South-West, had been squeezed until the pips squeaked. It was a policy of paying them less to produce more.
I do not believe there is a case for saying that Labour Price Reviews have worsened the situation, but they have not retrieved it. The credit control enforced by the Government has undoubtedly exacerbated the problem. Yet even now I find an extraordinary willingness on the part of some farmers to believe what they are told by the Conservative Party. A recent editorial in the British Farmer, under the heading "A month to remember", states:
Than there was the announcement by the Conservative Party, showing that it had been convinced by the Union that realistic price guarantees are needed if the party's agricultural policy is to command farmers' confidence.
That statement seems to me to be a woeful piece of optimism.
The idea that the N.F.U. has squeezed "realistic price guarantees" out of the Conservative Party is effectively shot through by the Spectator on 29th November where, in an editorial, it says of Tory policy:
…either the price levels at which the guarantees are eventually set will be so low as to be meaningless, in which case the farmers will quite reasonably denounce the retention of the guarantees as a fraud. Or the guarantees will be high enough to be effective, in which case both the tax savings and the removal of Treasury control over the level of home production will fail to materialise—in other words, the entire raison d'être of the change of policy in the first place will disappear.
What are the basic complaints which have emerged from the farmers, especially in the South-West, in recent weeks? I have field discussions in my constituency both with the official N.F.U. and the somewhat less official groups which have been formed. Basically, they can be summarised as these.
First, farmers have failed to share in the rising living standards of the rest of the community. This is a fact of which the farmers are far more conscious than they were. They know, for instance, that between 1958–9 and 1968–9, personal incomes rose by 46 per cent. while farm incomes rose by only 7 per cent. They

know, too, that between the mid-1950s and 1968, agricultural prices went up by 6 per cent. while the price of manufactured goods rose by 30 per cent., and that, since 1964, agricultural prices have risen by 8 per cent., whereas the prices of manufactured goods have risen by 13½ per cent.
They then look at their own commodity prices, especially those which are of interest to us in the South-West. Dairying is the predominant type of farming in the South-West. To the housewife, milk went up by 31 per cent. in the last decade, but to the farmer by only 11½ per cent. Compare that with beer. To the consumer, it went up by 63 per cent., whereas the farmers' barley went down by 13 per cent. If we look at beef, where the returns have been better than in many other agricultural products—and beef is very important to farmers in my constituency—the price of retail sirloin has gone up in the last decade by 46 per cent., but the price to the farmer for fat cattle has gone up by an average of 28 per cent. Leg of lamb has gone up by 47 per cent. to the housewife: Sheep to the farmer have gone up by 7 per cent. Leg of pork has gone up by 26 per cent. to the housewife: fat pigs to the farmer have gone up by only 5 per cent.
Moving on from the prices which they get, they look at their own costs. Farmers are being encouraged to look at their accounts in a more sophisticated manner than in the past, and they are more cost conscious than ever they were. They find that, in the last decade, the cost per worker employed In agriculture rose by about 75 per cent., while rents more than doubled. In the last four years alone, labour costs rose by 30 per cent., rents went up by 30 per cent., fuel and oil went up by 20 per cent., fertilisers by 25 per cent., feedingstuffs by 10 per cent., machinery services by 10 per cent., and so on. The average over the four years was between 17 and 18 per cent., whereas the increase in agricultural prices during the same period was only 8 per cent.
They are squeezed at both ends, and they know it. Naturally, they are wont to complain about it. I have already quoted the figures from one farmer's accounts. I met a group of farmers in my constituency just after Christmas, and they provided me with their accounts on the basis of seven or eight farms and I


was able to do an analysis of them. We had a long discussion about returns from particular types of farming. One thing which shattered me was a chart which they drew up for the return per cow from milk. This showed the margin per cow in pence over food and labour. Averaged across a group of 19 farms, the margin in 1969 was 11d. per cow less than in 1967. This has been brought about partly by the low price of milk and partly by substantial increases in the costs of feedingstuffs.
The farmers tell us that they must have a larger share of the milk market. They cannot have a larger share of the liquid milk market, because that is virtually taken up already by home production. However, when we look at butter we find that the home producers' share of the British butter market is extremely low. We have international agreements with New Zealand and many other countries. We also know that if we were to increase the amount of home-produced milk that goes into butter and were, therefore, to limit the amount of butter coming into the country, we would inevitably have to increase the price substantially.
If we take it that about two and a half gallons of milk go into a pound of butter, it would not be selling at 3s. per pound; it would have to sell at something over 10s. per pound. The British housewife, faced with this situation, would undoubtedly bring her butter consumption down to the levels that we see in those countries where butter is at this kind of price and where consumption per head is substantially below the level in this country.
All these problems can be discussed with farmers, but they come back to one basic issue, namely, that they are terribly short of credit, and credit is immensely expensive even when they can get it. Notwithstanding certain competing claims by various sections of the agricultural community, it is probably credit that has brought about the immediate crisis in agriculture in the South-West. Certainly a long period of bad returns—poor returns for their labour and poor returns on their investment—has ensured no investment and brought farmers to the point where they can be squeezed no longer. It is now

an urgent matter of injecting more credit for investment and expansion into the industry.
There has to be a definite decision by a Government of this country that we should make fuller use of one of our few natural resources—land. There has to be an acceptance of the vital role that agriculture plays in import saving and the consequent healthy effect on our balance of payments. This rôle is accepted by British industry; not just by the farming lobby. There has to be a realisation that with a world population explosion there may be a seller's market in foodstuffs in future.
No Government have really accepted that the role of a flourishing countryside is very considerable in maintaining a healthy balanced society. This is difficult, if not impossible, to quantify, but I am convinced of it.
There must also be recognition of the immense capital that is invested in British agriculture and knowledge of the part played by farming in constituting the essential home market for the ever-increasing export market for agricultural machinery.
On the credit side I think that the Government will have to increase the ceiling to which banks can lend. They may have to take urgent measures to reduce rates of interest for agriculture. It may be asked why I should single out one industry for this favoured treatment. I reply in the terms that I used to the Minister of Technology the other day when it was announced that the Government were proposing to extend cheap credit to the shipbuilding industry. If the Government can persuade the banks to provide the shipbuilding industry with an extra £200 million at 5½ per cent., there is a good argument for putting this kind of money, or more, into British agriculture at that rate of interest.
This is the only kind of measure that can really save a very large number of farmers, particularly in the South-West, from going to the wall. I should like to see, as a long-term development, a Land Bank, with preferential interest rates.
It is extraordinary that for the first time, certainly in my experience, I have found farmers in recent weeks prepared to talk seriously about the future nationalisation of the land as a possible solution to their problems. I do not think


that that view is widespread, but it is the kind of proposal—and it did not come from me—that would have met with sheer horror five years ago from those involved in agriculture.
It is interesting to note that a predecessor of mine, Tom Horobin, who won Cornwall, North for the Liberal cause, fought the 1945 election, and won by a substantial majority, on the platform of land nationalisation. I do not think that any Liberal candidate has done so since, and I certainly hope that I shall never be forced to do it. But unless the Government can improve the credit flow into British agriculture, and substantially improve the returns which farmers get for their capital and their labour, that kind of solution might even be discussed seriously by a majority of farmers at some time in the future.
I hope the Minister will be able to assure me that his right hon. Friend has the interests of farming very much at heart, that the Government are aware of the problems facing farmers, and that they are prepared, within the next few weeks, to ensure that farmers get a fair deal.

6.27 a.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. John Mackie): The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Pardoe) has gone over a considerable amount of ground. I agree with much of what he said, but he will appreciate that it is difficult for a Minister, almost in the middle of the Price Review, to say very much about what the Government might or might not do.
I should like to go over the many interesting points made by the hon. Gentleman, and discuss them with him. I think that his main point is that the South-West has problems which are different from those of other regions because of its structure and its climate. It is an area where grass is the main source of fodder for feeding dairy livestock for the production of milk.
The hon. Gentleman spoke about small farms, and about small farm businesses. Within our general policy a good deal of help can be got to this type of area. In the Bill now before a Committee upstairs we are removing from the conditions for grants under the farm improvement scheme the acreage and feed restric-

tions on small farms. These farmers, if they want to go intensive, can now get help from the Government. Before, they had to go it alone. The hon. Gentleman says that they cannot go intensive because they have been squeezed for so long, but now if they can raise the credit they will get help.
The hon. Gentleman said that he knew farmers well and had many discussions with them, and he often wondered—taking his own brother as an example—why they carried on. In the last 20 years about 50,000 to 60,000 farmers have gone out of business. When I was first at the Ministry, I asked for a survey of the reasons for quitting, but no real picture emerged, except of the considerable amount of heartbreak and lack of help. We now have the amalgamation scheme, with pensions and grants for people who find that their farms, for one reason or another—too small, bad land, and so on—are not a success and they want to retire. They can get help of up to £2,000, or a weekly pension of between £4 and £5, and this is a considerable help for those who want to retire.
The hon. Gentleman said that farmers could not provide capital out of income. He also said that the South-West is an area of militancy, the main militant being Mr. Wallace Day, who has made it public that he farms 350 acres and, I gather, his overdraft is about £80,000. This is hardly the type of militant to whom the hon. Gentleman was referring. He is their leader, and no doubt he receives support from the farmers with whom the hon. Gentleman is principally concerned.
On the political aspect of the matter, the hon. Gentleman wondered why this trouble had not blown up before, as the pressure had existed, he said, for a long time. My general thesis on that question goes wider perhaps than a milk and stock area like the South-West, and relates to the general squeeze on agriculture before we came into office. The Conservatives claimed credit for a rise in cereal production from 2 million or 3 million tons in 1953–54 to nearly 9 million tons in 1964–65. At the same time the level of stock, particularly sheep, was at best static, and generally declined. An imbalance was created in agriculture, and I make no bones about saying that the Opposition were responsible for it. Our


Price Reviews over the last few years show how we have pushed the balance towards stock again in an effort to set the overall balance of agriculture right.
Next, the hon. Gentleman spoke about the "red herring of the Common Market"—I am not sure whether he was being derogatory of the Common Market or not—which had been used to mislead the industry. I do not accept this the hon. Gentleman's statement was that they were being led up a blind alley. It is important that farmers should examine the Common Market. I do not know whether farmers were misled, I am not sure whether he is convinced that we shall be unable to enter the Common Market, but we must not lose sight of the prospect altogether, and this Government have never tried to mislead farmers about it.
I myself think that, on the whole, British agriculture and horticulture will benefit in the long term from our joining the Common Market. There will inevitably be a change of emphasis, but the loser, I think, will be the British housewife if—

Mr. Pardoe: I am a passionate supporter of British entry into the Common Market, and I always have been. I said that I thought that the National Farmers' Union's concentration on the issues of farming in the Common Market had diverted farmers' attention from the Opposition's malpractices.

Mr. Mackie: I take that point.
The older generation of farmers—I am beginning, unfortunately, to count myself as one of them now—remember what conditions were years ago. The propaganda that conditions are worse than in the 'thirties is absolute nonsense. I deprecate such statements. Anyone who lived through the late 'twenties and early 'thirties knows that the guarantees today, however bad things may seem, ensure that prices can no longer drop by half literally overnight. But the newer generation, seeing how the rest of the country live, are demanding a higher standard of living—and they deserve it.
On "mad" farm economics, the hon. Gentleman mentioned a farmer who paid £8,500 for his farm, which would be worth double at today's values, and who,

with capital of £13,000 invested, was getting a return of 6 per cent. The hon. Gentleman found farm accounts very difficult, and mentioned his brother, who had gone into broilers. I do not know the conditions under which his brother was farming, but going intensive by going into broilers on a reasonable-sized farm is not my idea of altering the economy of a farm. One can do that with a bit of cement the size of this Chamber. The paradox is that one can sell a farm at a good price, yet farmers are complaining about prices. I have already mentioned going intensive, and help can be got here.
On the point about progressive decline, the hon. Gentleman admitted that we had done considerably better than the Opposition—nearly 100 per cent. better in the Reviews. He said that the answer was not just dumping cash on to the end price, that there would have to be some different system of getting cash into the industry, as capital or credit. He pinpointed the difficulties of any Government in supporting agriculture when there is such a variation of farms —the farms in the South-West, the farms that I know in the North of Scotland, large areas of land worth literally shillings an acre, the big arable farms of Lincolnshire and the south and east coasts, and the small farms in the backbone of England, Derbyshire and the Pennines. To define a system of support for agriculture with this fantastic variation is almost outwith the wit of man.
Some areas are far worse hit than others. For two years the potato grower has had a bad time. There have been surpluses and a depressed price. There has been little more—and in some cases a little less—than the guaranteed price. This year, there is about the right amount of potatoes, they are not too cheap and not too dear to the housewife, and the returns on potatoes are almost equal to to last year's Price Review extra into the farmers' pockets. This is going only to one section, but it is a section which needs it, because of the bad price which it has had before. That is an illustration of how difficult agricultural support is.
The hon. Gentleman attacked the Conservative Party—and I agree with him. He then turned to the basic complaint, that the farmers have failed to share in the rising living standards of the country.


He instanced some price differences. Although I do not suggest that farmers are using phoney figures, their figures will not bear too much examination. We appeciate the difficulties which face farmers, but there is no reason why, when giving figures, they should not point out the developments which have made for improved output. For example, only a few years ago one might have got 600 gallons of milk a year from a cow. Today one can expect 900 gallons. In cereal production output has increased from one ton to 30 cwt. per acre. These facts should be put in the balance.
A short while ago a cow was brought to the main doors of the House of Commons and certain prices and slogans were attached to its ribs. It was pointed out on that occasion that while there had been an increase of from 6½d. to 11d. in the retail price of milk, the farmer's return had remained virtually static at between 4½d. and 5d. A poster proclaimed, "Retail price up 70 per cent. Producer's margin up only 7 per cent." It is misleading to give a straight comparison between the retail and production prices of liquid milk. One must bear in mind the fluctuation in distributive costs. While we appreciate that farmers have a case, they should bear the pool price in mind and make comparisons relating to all the relevant figures.
I assure the hon. Member for Cornwall, North that I am conscious of the steep rise, to which he referred, in farmers' costs. We have tried to keep costs down. The Prices and Incomes Board examines prices, but we must bear in mind the results of devaluation and what the Prime Minister said about one man's rise in wages being another man's rise in costs. We cannot have it both ways. Rises in costs are always taken into account at the Price Review, as is the efficiency factor.
The hon. Gentleman spoke of the increased cost of feeding stuffs. The Government have done a great deal to help the small farmer by means of the Agriculture and Horticulture Co-operative Council. Some time ago I spoke to a farmer whose cubing machine had broken down.

Only then, when he had to buy feed, did he realise that his cubing machine was saving him about £5 a ton on feed.
If small farmers in, for example, the South-West got together in co-operatives of three to five farms for the use of milling, mixing and cubing machinery, considerable economies could be secured, and that goes for a great deal of other farm equipment being used in a cooperative manner. Oddly enough, larger farmers initially took the greatest advantage of the Agriculture and Horticulture Co-operative Council's facilities, but now the smaller men are taking part to a greater extent.
The hon. Member for Cornwall, North questioned me about the share that British farmers might have in the milk products market and he pointed out that at present they were producing less than 10 per cent. of the nation's butter consumption. I am glad that he appreciates that butter gives a return of between 1s. 1d. and 1s. 2d. on a gallon of milk. Thus, if our farmers were to secure the market price in a way to give them a sufficient return, butter would be about 10s. per 1b. The housewife would not put up with that and would turn to margarine, and we would have a large surplus of butter on our hands. Under these conditions, the hon. Gentleman will see why a larger share of the market would be difficult to achieve in the way he suggested.
The hon. Gentleman suggested that part of the answer lay in injecting more capital into the industry by way of cheaper credit. He pointed to the rôle that agriculture could play. At this stage I can only agree with his general remarks and add that I cannot say very much on the subject, as the Review is coming up during the next two or three weeks.
The hon. Member's last point was on nationalisation. He may like to read a pamphlet which I wrote three or four years ago. When we were discussing the subject then, land was costing about £350 an acre. I have tried to give the hon. Member our ideas on the points he raised. I hope that in a few weeks' time the farmers in the West Country will feel better.

POLICE

6.46 a.m.

Mr. Wallace Lawler: We expect and we get high standards generally from our police. However militant the demonstration—whether one against the Springboks' tour or a revolt by students—the police are expected to be there safeguarding the right to demonstrate within the framework of law and order, and sometimes with risk to life and limb. One spectacle which the House and the country would not like to see would be police holding back police at a demonstration by police. The very nature of the duties of a policeman prohibits him from taking part in a demonstration of any kind. I believe we have one of the best police forces in the world, but it continues to lose some of its best men day by day.
It reflects little credit on us that we do not respond by ensuring the best rates of pay, conditions and allowances for those who serve us so well. The net pay of a policeman is now about 10s. a week less than it was before their last pay rise, due to increased superannuation and graduated pension payments. This one plain fact of which this House can hardly be proud underlies the seething discontent within the police force at a time when the responsibility, dangers and risk of injury for a serving policeman were never more pronounced.
The House will no doubt have taken special note of the unusually strong, but in my opinion totally justified, warning from the chairman of the Joint Control Commission of the 100,000 strong Police Federation, backed by 1,400 police delegates at their conference at Brighton last week. He said:
The police are seething. Constables of many years service are leaving to drive dust carts and buses".
He went on to warn,
the British public, some of whom would not sleep so soundly if they knew how thin the blue lines are, may discover to its dismay the true costs of false economy".
I hold no special brief for the police. Like many others I am prepared to entertain strong feelings about the bobby who pulls me up for exceeding the speed limit late at night or in the early hours of the morning, but having studied with

care the evidence of the Willink Report, published nearly 10 years ago, and the many letters sent to me by police officers and detectives, I am quite certain that the police have a case, and an exceptionally strong case, for immediate improvement in their pay, conditions and allowances.
The Willink Report of November, 1960, stressed the urgent necessity to consider how the social and economic changes of the preceding 20 years should be reflected in a constable's remuneration. In 1970, after 10 further years of unprecedented social and economic change, this urgent necessity remains just as unresolved. Indeed, police pay has fallen far behind the standards laid down in the report.
Not only does the scale of police pay require upward revision, but most of the conditions and allowances applicable today are completely out-dated. One or two recent examples of the meagre allowances inflicted upon the tremendous force of police concerned with the recent Investiture of the Prince of Wales will suffice to prove this. The expenses and allowances of police officers take no account of occasions like this, when prices of food and accommodation are at their peak.
For instance, four officers from the Midlands worked a total of 80 hours overtime, for which only one day—that is, eight hours—was paid. One police officer—the Under-Secretary will be aware of the officer to whom I refer—with a fine record actually worked over 160 hours in 11 days and received the same kind of reduced payment. He was obliged shortly afterwards to leave the police service because of an incorrect claim involving 19s. 6d. The officers concerned did not realise they would receive such a meagre and small payment for their overtime until they received their pay after the Investiture.
I wonder what would happen if this kind of example was applied to any worker in any other profession or industry, if overtime which they had worked was not paid for.
Subsistence allowances for these officers are still disgracefully low and many are forced to take lower standards of accommodation when away from home to avoid being out of pocket. Even then,


many find that they remain considerably out of pocket after undertaking important special duties. In fact, many of the large number of officers who were engaged in duties at the Investiture in Wales round themselves about £15 or £20 out of pocket.
The Home Office will be well aware also that there are marked inadequacies in the present conditions attached to full police pensions. A police officer has to serve for 30 years until he is 50 years of age before qualifying for a full pension of two-thirds pay. A full police pension can be drawn for a maximum of 15 years—that is, from 50 to 65 years of age. This is an obvious deterrent to recruits if they realise this.
The allowances to members of the C.I.D. leave very much to be desired. For example, the boot allowance is 3s. 9d. per week. The duty allowance is £1 19s. 1d. per week. The grand sum of 10s. per week is allowed for detective expenses. Frequently they have to work shifts when there is no public transport and have to use their own cars. For this they receive a sum which is perhaps not without some significance to hon. Members—4d. per mile.
I quote from a letter similar to very many that I have received. It is signed by five disgruntled detectives from the Warwickshire and Coventry area:
These allowances are laughable at present-day prices and were fixed by Police Regulations in 1965. This job is rather frustrating due to economic factors. … The Home Office has catered for under-manning in respect of seriously under-manned forces, but despite the fact that this force"—
that is, the one at Warwickshire and Coventry—
is 400 under strength the authorities refuse to pay this. The only overtime paid to C.I.D. personnel is on occasions such as a murder"—
although, due to the forces being under strength, such overtime obviously results in a saving of many thousands of pounds per year.
Is it any wonder that there is much widespread dissatisfaction among the police? Is it not a matter of urgent and considerable concern that in the 12 months ended October, 1969, resignations or police officers with more than three years' service—the trained men whom we can least afford to lose—exceeded both the total of normal retire-

ments—1,541—and those who resigned with less than three years' service—1,607? I quote from c. 1542 of HANSARD for 18th December, 1969.
Is it surprising that in these conditions even large authorities like the City of Birmingham find it necessary to call conferences
to determine what action can best be taken in support of the maintenance of law and order"?
Birmingham is well worth quoting because, like many other parts of the country, it happens to be 516 short of its authorised strength of 3,029 police. Like other areas, it finds that even increased recruiting is failing to keep pace with the rate of voluntary resignations.
A letter I have just received from the town clerk of Birmingham says:
Investigation of the reasons for voluntary resignations from the force point to the rates of pay and conditions of service, and to the greater inducement which industry and commerce offer. Whilst any loss to the force is a matter of concern, it is all the more serious to lose trained police officers, many of whom have completed long periods of service".
Here, then, for the Home Office, is the writing on the wall, and it is only too clear. It comes from 100,000 police and from leading local authorities in the provinces. They have sounded what I feel is the most grave warning. I stress that it should not be given the usual Governmental slow treatment.
Last week, the official body representing the police said that it expected the Home Secretary to reply in eight days to its claim for an immediate pay rise. The Home Secretary told me this week that the matter of police pay will begin to be considered by the Police Council on Friday this week.
The present very grave situation—I have been able to refer to only a few aspects of it—calls for a very full and positive assurance from the Home Office that every possible step will be taken to expedite consideration of the entire field of police pay, conditions and allowances and that exceptionally urgent steps, commensurate with the gravity of the position, will be taken to implement any recommendations immediately they are made.
I am certain that if the Home Office fails to give very full and satisfactory assurances of this or a similar nature, if it prefers to await the full findings and


recommendations of the Police Council before giving any of the assurances for which a body representing over 100,000 police has asked, then, despite the doubled amount of public funds allocated to recruiting, the nation will continue to lose more and more of its best and trained members of our police forces at a time when we should be prepared, even at the cost of special legislation, if necessary, to ensure that the police are given fair play and fair pay without further procrastination.

6.59 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): I was somewhat surprised that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Lady-wood (Mr. Lawler) chose police pay, allowances and conditions of service as the subject of this debate. I would not wish to suggest that these are not matters in which Parliament should have an active and continuing interest. Of course that is so. But the question which must be asked is whether the timing is appropriate, whether now is the time for the House of Commons to discuss these matters.
I would agree broadly with the eulogies of the hon. Gentleman to the police. He went on to say that police officers were now worse off than they were before the last pay award and mentioned a net diminution of about 10s. due to an increase in graduated pensions, as he stated in a Written Question, the reply to which he received yesterday. I cannot accept his arithmetic. I am sorry to say that he has wildly exaggerated the position.
The Police Council for Great Britain is now beginning its review of police pay as a matter of urgency. As the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland are together responsible for the ultimate approval of the Police Council's recommendations, I am sure that the House will accept that it would be wholly improper for me to say anything about the merits of the case or the possible outcome of the review.
The Police Council is well established as the forum where matters affecting pay, allowances and conditions of service of the police can be discussed between the representatives of the interested parties. Of course the House is entitled to have

information about this matter, but at the proper time. This machinery is accepted on all sides. It must now be allowed to function and the people concerned must be allowed to get on with the job, and I am sure that the hon. Member accepts that Parliament is not the appropriate rostrum for deciding matters which can be decided only by negotiation.

Mr. Lawler: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that an official of a responsible body representing 100,000 policemen is exaggerating the position and asking for an assurance that ought not to be and will not be given by the Home Office?

Mr. Morgan: My charge of exaggeration was only in respect of what the hon. Member said about the diminution in net pay of constables compared with the last review. I have already told him that the Police Council for Great Britain is beginning its review of police pay as a matter of urgency. The point I am making is that these matters must be settled by negotiation, the way which is accepted by all parties, and not in any other way, not as an oratorical contest across the Floor of the House of Commons.
I should like to refer to the basis for pay rates. The Royal Commission on the Police, the Willink Commission of 1960, based its recommendation for police pay on a formula which is generally known as the Willink formula. This took account of rates of pay in a number of skilled trades and made allowances for the inconvenience and rigours of life in the police. A deduction was made to offset the value of a policeman's free house.
This formula was not fully accepted by the Police Council and, by the agreement of both sides, subsequent reviews have not used that Willink formula but rather relied on movements in wages generally. For the reasons I have given, I cannot comment on the accuracy of any figures which have been quoted as to the present value of the 1960 agreement.
There are three other matters which I should like briefly to mention. The first is manpower. After consulting the local authority associations, my right hon.


Friend the Home Secretary has recently authorised a substantial increase in recruiting publicity. Secondly, the causes of premature wastage due to men resigning before pension age are under continual review. We are paying close attention to this matter. Thirdly, as for the priority attached to the police; the Government have done a great deal to encourage the growth and increase the efficiency of the police service. They will certainly continue to give it the highest priority.

SPORTING FIXTURES (DEMONSTRATIONS)

7.5 a.m.

Mr. Antony Buck: It is right that the House should consider, even at this hour and after this length of silting, the problems which are basic to the good ordering of our society and which are raised by the violent demonstrations which have taken place and which are threatened at sporting events. It seemed to me appropriate that in the debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill we should focus attention on the cost to public funds of combating violence at sporting events.
Perhaps I may be permitted to try to put this matter in perspective. The Rugby Union, the duly constituted body which regulates rugby football, decided to invite the South African rugby team, the Springboks, to this country. The M.C.C. has similarly decided to invite the South African cricket team over here during the coming summer. Those were decisions which, undoubtedly and incontrovertibly, those two bodies were entitled to make. I observe that the Joint Under-Secretary of State acknowledges that. Indeed, it has been so acknowledged by reputable people throughout the country.
Of course, the M.C.C. is entitled to invite the South African cricket team to come here, as the Rugby Union was similarly entitled to ask the Springboks. Similarly, incontrovertibly, those were decisions which were disagreed with by quite a large number of people.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): When I showed assent, I

wished only to record that they were legally entitled to send the invitation.

Mr. Buck: They were certainly legally entitled to do so. The hon. Gentleman is the person, in the stead of the Home Secretary, who is charged with the maintenance of law and order and legal activities in this country, so I am obliged to him for his intervention.
Those who disagree with those decisions are, of course, entitled to say in the most trenchant manner they choose that they disagree with them. Similarly, if they think it productive for the causes which they espouse, they are entitled to demonstrate against those decisions, but to demonstrate, I emphasise, only in a peaceful and legal way. That, as I see it, is the position.
The Springboks' tour has gone through. The authorities stood firm and were not intimidated. The Springboks, who consist of young players devoted to the game or rugby, stood up splendidly to the strain imposed on them by demonstrations, although it is not, perhaps, surprising that they were perhaps not able to play their best because of the strain that the demonstrations imposed upon them.
The police were—in the view, I hope, of the whole House—extremely restrained and the manner in which they dealt with the demonstrations was admirable. It is not surprising in the circumstances that there should have been individual complaints against the police from time to time. These are, of course, being properly investigated in a regular manner under Section 49 of the Police Act, 1964.
My feeling is that the Home Secretary, together with the chief constables, was right to ensure that proper police forces were deployed outside the grounds to contain the demonstrations and see that they did not get out of hand.
Similarly, I suspect that the Home Secretary, with the chief constables involved, was generous in his interpretation of the charges which should be made for the services of the police inside the grounds. The Home Secretary and the chief constables involved were right to see that appropriate numbers of police were available inside grounds as well as outside, and that some of the cost of the police services inside the grounds should fall on public funds. As it has fallen on public funds, I should like to hear from


the Joint Under-Secretary what is the final figure. The House is entitled to know the amount which, overall, these demonstrations have cost the Exchequer, but, as I say, in the extraordinary circumstances here I commend the Home Secretary and the chief constables for the fact that it does appear that they were probably generous in their interpretation of the amount which they would charge the clubs for providing police forces inside grounds as well as outside.
The common practice, as the Home Secretary has said, is to base the charges made under Section 15 of the Police Act, 1964, on the number of policemen who are required to attend inside the ground or premises. The exact legal position is somewhat obscure. There is legal obscurity about interpretation of that Section. and it derives from a case way back in the 'twenties, but my impression is that the chief constables involved and the Home Secretary have been sensible in allowing adequate numbers of police inside grounds as well as outside and in not always, at any rate, making the full charges which they are, perhaps, strictly speaking, entitled to put on the clubs.
That is all of the past. Now we must look to the coming summer. As the M.C.C. has issued the invitation, as it was entitled to do, and as it has been accepted, the tour goes on. Mr. D'Oliviera expressed the view in a recent article in the Sunday Telegraph—and I must say that they carried considerable weight with me—that it was not wrong to issue the invitation. Still, even if one took the view that the invitation was wrongly issued, I think the whole House would agree that it would be an ill day for the rule of law and order in this country if the invitation had to be retracted because of the threat of violence or because of violence itself.
My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) put a similar point rather succinctly in the House on 17th November, when he said:
Is it not plain that, whatever may be one's attitude to the desirability or otherwise of these games, people who desire to take part in football matches "—
and the same applies to cricket matches—
or to watch them, have a perfectly valid legal right to do so, and that if this right is to be interdicted by those who do not happen to share their views there will be neither freedom

nor law in Britain?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1969; Vol. 791, c. 854.]
Therefore, I reiterate that, whatever view one takes of the decision to invite the South Africans, it would indeed be an ill day if the invitation had to be retracted because of the threat of violence or, indeed, because of acts of violence.
The preservation of law and order at cricket matches obviously presents enormouse difficulties. I would ask the Minister to tell us this morning what arrangements have been made by the Home Secretary, in conjunction with chief constables and those who are responsible for the organisation of the forthcoming tour, to see that the burden of combating the organised campaign to stop a perfectly legal activity does not fall entirely on the clubs and the cricket authorities generally. It would be wrong, in face of an organised effort to try to stop a legal activity, if strong measures were not taken to combat this campaign, which has extremely unhealthy overtones, and some guarantee should be given that the full cost will not have to be borne by the clubs. Otherwise, we might have the situation in which, the invitation having been issued, it is withdrawn, indirectly because of the threat of violence.
The legal aspect seems somewhat obscure. In the past, the Home Secretary and the chief constables seem, in the case of the Springboks' tour, to have been quite generous in the way they have interpreted the relevant Sections of the Act and case law. I hope that a similar attitude will be taken in relation to the forthcoming cricket tour, the more so since the cricket grounds are more vulnerable than the rugby football grounds and the cricket clubs will face considerable difficulty in their efforts to preserve law and order and counteract violent demonstrations.
I have received a letter from a constituent on this topic which I would like to quote. Since I have not had the opportunity to communicate with him, I cannot now give his name. The letter adds point to what we are discussing. It says:
I am worried—worried about the way I am being governed. I want my liberty to watch the South African rugger and cricket matches to be protected. Last night's vandalism at the cricket grounds is symptomatic of too much that is declining in my country today. The freedom to protest I acknowledge. My freedom must also be acknowledged and protected.


That is the nub of the matter. A perfectly legal decision has been made to invite the South African cricketers. It would be inappropriate now to go into whether that is a right decision, but my view, much affected by the view of Mr. D'Oliveira is that it probably is right that it should have been issued and accepted. But, whatever one's view, it would be wrong if the invitation had to be withdrawn directly or indirectly because of threats of violence. It would be an ill day for law and order if that happened. I hope that stern measures will be taken to prevent people from conspiring to prevent others from doing something perfectly legal, and that the Home Secretary and the police authorities will be generous in the help they give to the clubs in the preservation of law and order.

7.18 a.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Elystan Morgan): The hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) referred to unhealthy overtones in relation to the campaign now conducted by some persons who seek to have the 1970 tour of the South African cricket team cancelled. I hope that, when he used that term, he was referring to unlawful methods and not to the activities of those who, in a perfectly lawful manner, express their abhorrence of apartheid.

Mr. Buck: Early in my speech I emphatically made the point that those who disagree with the decision to issue the invitation to the South Africans are perfectly entitled to demonstrate in a peaceful, lawful manner. But it appears that the organisers of this campaign are stating that they are likely to use violent means. It is that to which I object, and that alone.

Mr. Morgan: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman.
The first point to impress upon the House is that these matches take place on private premises and the operators of such premises have general obligations in law and have moral obligations to society with regard to the maintenance of good order. In addition, they have rights at law which allow them to deal with trespassers and those who break the law in a certain manner.
The authority of the chief constable to provide officers in consideration of payment to attend at these grounds is governed by Section 15(1) of the Police Act, 1964, which says:
The chief officer of police of any police force may provide, at the request of any person, special police services at any premises or in any locality in the police area for which the force is maintained, subject to the payment to the police authority of charges on such scales as may be agreed by that authority.
We should remember that it is within the discretion of the chief officer of police to provide men for these purposes and that it is within the discretion of the police authority, not the Home Office, to decide what payment, if any, shall be charged for the provision of such a service. The practice in the past has not been entirely uniform, but in the vast majority of cases a payment was demanded for the provision of officers who attended inside these grounds. The number attending varied greatly, depending on the decision of the chief officer of police in each case.
Having said that, it is right to remember that the police have only limited manpower. We often hear how much they are under strength and we must bear in mind that a chief officer often does not have unlimited resources at his disposal. He must direct his mind to the question of priorities. Surely the first priority must be the protection of life, and following upon that the prevention of serious breaches of the peace. Thirdly, there is the protection of property. The police have the general duty of preserving the Queen's peace. That means that society should be allowed to carry on in its normal ways, according to its ordinary habits as it wishes, and that order, the natural tranquility, should not be interfered with, save with good cause.
In considering whether or not substantial numbers of men can be deployed for this purpose, a chief officer of police must always bear in mind whether that diversion of resources in any way weakens his own position in the discharge of his duties in the three main periods I have mentioned.
The real answer to the case put by the hon. Member is this. There are many private functions at which there is the possibility of a breach of the peace. Obviously, the police cannot attend all of them. Crowds assemble for many reasons, and the principle that somebody


connected with the occasion should pay for the work of the police in maintaining order would be of wide application, embracing, for example, political meetings, sports events of all kinds and the appearance in public of celebrated or notorious people.
In some cases a demonstration in the streets can be directly connected with an action of a person or body occupying private premises. In other cases the action may be less obvious or such action may be entirely laudable. It is not for the police to judge the worthiness of the motives of persons organising events on private premises. I know that the House readily accepts that the position of the police in this matter is one of absolute neutrality.

Mr. Buck: I, of course, accept that, but would not the hon. Gentleman agree that we are confronted, or are likely to be confronted in the summer, with an extraordinary situation? Having dealt with the generalities, will he now indicate what consultations he or the Home Secretary is having with the cricket authorities about this matter.

Mr. Morgan: I am aware that the M.C.C. has requested the Home Office for a meeting with the Home Secretary which will take place later this week. The House will appreciate that neither the Home Office nor any other Government Department has any authority whatever to ban the holding of any sporting event. The limited powers which exist under the Public Order Act certainly do not

apply to the type of situation which we are now discussing.
Two principles must be borne in mind when considering this complex problem. The first is that from time immemorial a distinction in regard to police activity has largely been vested in the chief officer of police. The developments of the last 150 years have accepted that precedent. Section 15(1) of the Act which I have already quoted is clearly in line with the traditional discretion of the chief of police. Therefore, the question must be faced as to how far it is proper for that discretion to be affected by any central authority. The second question is whether it is right that substantial expenses should be met out of public funds for the costs of a private function held on private premises.
There is one final matter. A question has been asked about the additional cost to police and clubs arising out of the Springbok tour. I am informed that the sum is £50,000, of which approximately £5,000 falls upon the clubs.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

Committee this day.

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Ernest G. Perry.]

Adjourned accordingly at half-past Seven o'clock a.m.